My development website, I'd love to hear what people think

https://www.hirematt.dev/

This is very much a serious website, but also still a work in progress, I would love to hear what people think, and appreciate any feedback!

Thanks so much you guys. :smiley:

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Hi Matthew,

I like the effects, especially the particle ones, but I think some animations are a bit too long (for example the ones of the buttons in the navbar). Iā€™d also stop the animation loop in the navbar after some iterations because it tends to distract the user from the content of your website. If you stop them though, youā€™ll need some other visual cue for the active element (maybe a different colour for the text).

The pictures took a bit of time for me to show up. I canā€™t inspect them but Iā€™m using a 4G connection at the moment, which should be kinda fast. That makes me think they must have a very high resolution.
I suggest you to have the pictures in different resolutions and serve the correct one based on the clientā€™s screen width.
You can do this either with CSS media-queries or with imgā€™s attribute srcset (take a look at this answer from @DanCouper : Images with different sizes and quality?).

I also think that making the text in a light color rather than black would make your website more accessible. At the moment there isnā€™t enough contrast because also the background is dark.

Lastly, for the contact form, Iā€™d move the ā€œcontact meā€ text closer to the form and more away from the navbar. Also Iā€™d put the submit button on the right side (but this is just a personal preference).

Good job :slight_smile:

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The animations are quite impressive, well done. Having said that, a few things I would recommend:

  • I personally donā€™t like dark background colosr for a portfolio, Iā€™d definitely go for a light background color instead, itā€™s seems easier to read and it looks more ā€œfriendlyā€. But if you really want to use a dark background color I would combine it with another color other than a dark one. I recommend you to go to dribbble or similar websites and get inspiration. Overall your portfolio animations are cool but the design can improve.

  • Remove the hover effect from the credentials photos, itā€™s very annoying for the user experience, use a click event instead and add a fade in animation to the popup.

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Iā€™d consider making your header responsive on small screens because the letters and contact blend together.

Iā€™d also think about putting projects on the main page (or put your certificates on a different page) because from what I understand people are more impressed with what you can do than what certificates you have earned. However, thatā€™s just my opinion based on what Iā€™ve seen on this forum and job postings.

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Thanks very much, Iā€™ll address every single word youā€™ve mentioned, and I appreciate your time.

Ok, thanks so much for your constructive criticism, I think itā€™s really valuable.

Good point, I was going to do that but I guess I moved on to programming something else, thanks so much for taking your time to help me out!

Hello, Great work on the website, neat animations!
If I may add just some points:
1- black text on black background isnā€™t very readable, I believe there should be some color contrast between the background and foreground. You can check your contrast ratio here https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

2- If some images in the certificate section arenā€™t loading but on hover they ā€œexpandā€ showing nothing but still you have to move the cursor away to be able to click on anything. Iā€™d have to agree with @Gilbert1391 about removing the hover effect, Iā€™d also recommend not enlarging the image for almost full screen size.

3- The header/nav area arenā€™t very responsive as on smaller windows. e.g: the ā€œcontact meā€ link overlaps the site name and the navbar covers half the ā€œLetā€™s Talkā€ link.

Great job nonetheless!

Itā€™s a fun site, and there is a lot of info there. I would make sure you have front page above teh fold the type of work you want people to hire you for.

with the color scheme and animations, the front page looks like myspace (sorry, no offense, but animations arenā€™t development, unless youā€™re specifically wanting to do UI & animationsā€¦and if thatā€™s the case, you should include that in yoru skills.

I wouldnā€™t expect people you want to hire you to know what all the different dev bootcamp certificates are. But I also donā€™t know what kind of job youā€™re looking for.

IOn contrast the ā€œmy notesā€ page continas a lot of info that may or may not be impressive to yoru proespective employer. If youā€™re looking to get hired with a dev firm it may not be real helpful. If youā€™re looking to get hired as an exper tby a small business that wants a coder, maybe theyā€™ll be impressed?

Overall, I think the site looks good and Iā€™m sure some significant thought and work went into it.

But if you want to use this to actually get work, you need to focus your prospective employers on the first page, then use the rest of the site to support the work you want.