Hey guys,

For a while now I have my portfolio "done". Every once in a while I update it with more relevant work, but one thing that has me thinking for some time now is personalizing it with a picture (or more) of myself.

This is my portfolio in its current state: http://joeyfladderak.com/

What is the general opinion of giving away the face behind the person of the portfolio? When I just started building I think I encountered as much sites with as without a picture on it.

If I would add a photo of myself, it would only be in the about me section I think, or should I put it somewhere else?

Also general feedback on my portfolio is appreciated!

Disclaimer: I'm not HR, this is just my personal opinion

Overall your page looks clean and professional.

But I think that a portfolio is more about your work and skills, than personal things. I.e. you wrote

Restocking supplies[/quote]
in your work experience which is unprofessional IMHO. Don't try to create a large sheet by adding fill jobs which has nothing to do with your target branch (IT).

The navigation to your games/tech demos is quite clumpsy, a simpler, cleaner, directer navigation would be nice.

Revisit your screenshots, add only really cool screenshots (quality instead of quantity). I.e the ray-tracer refraction screenshot is pretty hard to read. Either remake it (i.e. put a half covered sphere behind the glass sphere), or remove it.

Nevertheless, you seems to be on the right track. Good work sofar.

Disclaimer: I'm not HR, this is just my personal opinion

Overall your page looks clean and professional.

But I think that a portfolio is more about your work and skills, than personal things. I.e. you wrote

Restocking supplies

in your work experience which is unprofessional IMHO. Don't try to create a large sheet by adding fill jobs which has nothing to do with your target branch (IT).

The navigation to your games/tech demos is quite clumpsy, a simpler, cleaner, directer navigation would be nice.

Revisit your screenshots, add only really cool screenshots (quality instead of quantity). I.e the ray-tracer refraction screenshot is pretty hard to read. Either remake it (i.e. put a half covered sphere behind the glass sphere), or remove it.

Nevertheless, you seems to be on the right track. Good work sofar.
[/quote]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah I agree about the restocking thing. It's nothing related and I will remove it.

Not sure about the navigation. I get a lot of different opinions about that. In the first place I just had a link to my projects and I got complaints that there wasn't a distinction, that people wanted to see specific things if they desired so. Perhaps I should rather make a filter in that case.

The raytracer is actually a leftover from a fillerup to show how the site would be with content, but I didn't take it out yet for some reason (It's a very bad raytracer ) but I get the point.

Thing is, my most recent addition are my CgFX shaders, the pictures actually link to a youtube video showing it in motion. Would you say that I still need to take just the nice looking ones in that case? The pictures basically serve as navigation (perhaps I should mention that there..) and I'd like people to be able to see them all, or the ones they want to see.

Not bad stuff at all. A little more than 2c from me...

Like Ashaman, I too found the navigation a little clumsy. I think the intention here is good and it does look at little better than a basic alternative, but it does have issues.

Part of the issue for me is the idea of using mouse hover to open up the menus progressively. Too easy to miss the target and cancel the progression IMHO, so I think this is always done best by responding to clicks and I do think that would take one level of clumsiness away.

I can see however that it does respond to clicks, but in two ways. For the leaf nodes, I think what it does is okay - I select one option and it gives me a final page for that project. For the non-leaf/intermediate menu nodes (portfolio->games and portfolio->tree) the fact that clicking on it doesn't open up the leaf node, but adds yet another page presenting the same information as the intermediate non-leaf node is something I find a little clumsy too. The idea that this can occur as it's rendering the leaf node menu (drawing it from top to bottom) also looks odd because some times it's doing both - it gets halfway or full way through revealing the left node menu and then flicks to the left mode page, removing the menu it looks created. It either looks like a bug or just doesn't present well, or both.

I would present the leaf nodes consistently and again, in one way only - either as a page, or as sub-menu items but not both. I do prefer the menu myself, although not with the hover selection as explained.

Each of the demo pages appears to have what initially looks to be a slideshow of static screens with videos below. It's not actually obvious that the slideshow is a slideshow of videos and it was only on the second time I looked at the entire portfolio that I realized that wasn't the case. More important people looking at this (potential employers) might make the same mistake and not give it a second shot so I do think this is an issue because some of these 'screenshots' just look too basic* until you realize they are a video.

Part of the issue here really is that you do already have something that is obviously an embedded video and you have something that looks different, so naturally you think it is not video. The fact that does play as a slideshow and responds like one when you click on the dots doesn't help either and further adds to the idea these are not videos. It's also a little clumsy interface on that video/slideshow thing too - sometimes I click play and it just goes to the next video, which again confuses me as to what it is and how to best control it. I would do away with this control to be honest.

Either way I would make all videos look like videos in the same way - presenting them with the same control consistently even if you have to put more videos on the same page and not use the video slideshow type control (or make it a screenshot slideshow). Because this might increase the # of videos on each page I would also take some of the more basic videos off - there's no need to show solitary bouncing ball videos when you have ones with 100's in for example.

Finally, the list of features for each demo is fine but I would put paragraphs below that with more technical detail. It wouldn't look out of place and of course, reading it is optional. It therefore adds, but not takes anything away.

Not bad stuff at all. A little more than 2c from me...

Like Ashaman, I too found the navigation a little clumsy. I think the intention here is good and it does look at little better than a basic alternative, but it does have issues.

...

Alright, I think I get the point! And I actually agree with it. Going to put it on my to-do list!

Each of the demo pages appears to have what initially looks to be a slideshow of static screens with videos below. It's not actually obvious that the slideshow is a slideshow of videos and it was only on the second time I looked at the entire portfolio that I realized that wasn't the case. More important people looking at this (potential employers) might make the same mistake and not give it a second shot so I do think this is an issue because some of these 'screenshots' just look too basic* until you realize they are a video.

...

Yeah, that's what I figured, but thanks for clarifying it in more detail it actually just hit me later (after the first poster) that it wasn't as obvious as I thought it was but noted!

I didn't encounter the issue you had with the clicking and getting the next video though, but with the changes I'm going to make it should get fixed regardless!

Either way I would make all videos look like videos in the same way - presenting them with the same control consistently even if you have to put more videos on the same page and not use the video slideshow type control (or make it a screenshot slideshow). Because this might increase the # of videos on each page I would also take some of the more basic videos off - there's no need to show solitary bouncing ball videos when you have ones with 100's in for example.

Agreed, I already want to skimp down a bit on the content, take out the less impressive things, stick to the more nice stuff and such. Generally go over all content and rethink what I want to show, what I want to add in terms of description and such.

Finally, the list of features for each demo is fine but I would put paragraphs below that with more technical detail. It wouldn't look out of place and of course, reading it is optional. It therefore adds, but not takes anything away.

Good point, I will take that with me when I go over the content again!

Thanks for the feedback! Really appreciated