Goals For My Portfolio
1. To design a site that meets with the W3C guidelines for accessibility.
The site I produce needs to be compliant with these standards so that it is professional and to a standard of employability. By incorporating these standards it will show awareness to prospective employers but also make the site accessible to the largest possible audience. Things to consider would be alt tags and ensuring there were no broken links. This could be tested with users tests.
2. To design a website that has a consistent layout.
The website would need to be consistent in layout so that when users are navigating the pages they are confident that they have not navigated away from the home site and gone to a new site. Feedback for this goal could be gained from user testing.
3. To create a website in XHTML 1.0 transitional.
I will be using this technology as it is what I have produced work in previously and am confident in using. This goal will be easily measured by using the validating service provided on the W3C site.
4. To incorporate some original content in the design of the page.
With this goal I mean to say that I will be creating a portfolio that is itself a piece of design work and I plan to create original pieces of design to further show my potential as an employee. This would be easily measured as I would provide the sketchbook work to back up my design process.
5. To produce a web page that is appropriate and aesthetically pleasing to the target market.
I need to ensure that the design is pleasing to the target market as they primarily will be prospective employers and course tutors. The importance of this goal is that it will contribute to my employability. This would be measured by gaining feedback from prospective employers; I would do this by asking for feedback when going through the interview process if the feedback wasn’t offered freely.
posted by DREW @ 4:23 PM
11 Comments:
Just a bit of quick feedback for you to mull over:
1. Which W3C guidelines? And to what level? There is lots of guidelines and things that the W3C would like you to do, so you need to specfiy exactly which one you are referring to.
2. A website having a consistent layout is a pre-requisite to me, I don't think it needs to be a goal to be honest. It just seems a bit wishy-washy and of no real purpose.
3. All you have to do to create a website in XHTML 1.0 Transitional is to put the right DOCTYPE at the top of your page. Surely you want to create valid Transitional code? Maybe you could aim for Strict too - there isn't that much difference between the two.
4. Again, I'm not sure about this goal. I don't think your design choices should necessarily be included as part of your goals.
5. How do you measure the term "appropriate"? This is a very abstract term, with each person's value of appropriate being very different to the next. I'd say get rid of that word and just have the goal as making the website suitable to the target market. I think asking for design feedback at an interview may be a little too late.
Hope that helps you refine the goals you've set.
For the first goal I would suggest going for the priority one guidelines if its your first attempt at web accessibility complience. If you wish to take on a bigger challenge then I would go for the Conformance Level "Double-A"
For goal three I would be interested why you have chosen 1.0 transitional and not strict? Is their any particular reason for this? Strict is much better for your learning skills and employment.
Referring to Goal 3, wouldn't using a strict DOCTYPE show the potential employer that your code is at a really good level. When an employer comes across your portfolio, they won't just look at the work you have on there, they will view your page code to see how compentent you are.
It has sometimes been mentioned that transitional coding is just for those people who can't be bothered to use strict.
Also for goal 2, I agree with Craig. Isn't having a consistant layout something you should have regardless of the purpose of your website?
@Suzanne - I think Craig has read into it differently to what Drew has said.
Drew put to make a website in XHTML 1.0 and Craig has read it as to purely make the website as XHTML 1.0 documents and not validate it. So Craig has said it is easy just to copy and paste the code into the document i.e. the DOCTYPE code at the top of the document.
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Sorry I accidentally posted that twice.
I agree with the others - making a website using the Strict DOCTYPE would be much better. It is not that hard to do, you just need to look at what the validation software says is wrong and alter it accordingly.
Couldnt your second and 5th goal be put together as one? Surely an appropriate design is one which has a consistent layout.
Thanks to everyone for your comments and advise. I can see that there are some points that I will need to revisit, in other instances I don't agree with some of the issues raised. I will repost my Goals and try explain the points better.
What I will look to do, as most of you agree, is look at Strict rather than Transitional.
I agree with Marc about using "Strict" instead of "Transitional" because this is much harder to meet so would look much better to employers.
I think that when refining your goals you could focus more on how measurable they are. The more measurable they are the easier it becomes to meet them.
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I like the idea of your 4th goal it is probably the most original out of everyone’s goals. I remember Steve discussing whether our portfolios would be design work in there own right or just a platform to show our work, but I didn’t mention it as a goal.
I think the 5th goal would be very difficult to gain if you want to get the feedback while going through the interview process in terms of the assignment. I agree getting feedback during interviews would be a good idea, but it wouldn’t help you achieve this assignment goal before the deadline.
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