Today’s assignment is to evaluate Ms. Kathryn Houghton’s digital dossier, at www.katthrynhoughton.com.
So, let’s get right down to business and pick it apart.
I like the homepage, immediately; clean without being boring, obvious menu in clear lettering, no retina-burning colors, interesting font, appropriate and discernable icons… all together, well put on annd very professional looking. The most important part of a digital dossier (so far as I can tell, I certainly no expert), is for it to be inviting. There’s nothing more heinous then a website where you can’t read the font that’s in a color that blends into the background, and you can’t find anything to navigate you away from the God-awful page, because the overzealous web “designer” forgot to build a menu, or even worse, they did, but they’re all dead links! No one likes that, so Kathryn Houghton is one for one, right now.
The homepage also gives a brief synopsis of her as a person, without giving an uncomfortable amount of info. She includes plenty of links to learn more about her, if you really want to be a creeper, though. It’s nice that her bio doesn’t overwhelm the reader.
There are five seperate category links for her work; formal writing, creative writing, editing, visual design and web design, and like I said before, they were clearly labeled and had corresponding icons that fit the overall style of the webpage.
The first one I clicked on was “formal writing,” and was taken to a link page with a small picture of the written work next to a blurb stating what that particular piece of writing was about, as well as what publication it was done for and the genre. (By the way, check her writings, they’re pretty good!) I like the idea of the picture of the writing, interesting stuff, but moreover, I loved that she had an explanatory blurb to go with it, instead of just trying to let writing stand on it’s own, which it, frankly, very well could’ve. The font was again, very easy to read, she kept the color scheme simple with black and white. Again, kudos.
When I clicked on “creative writing,” it was pretty much the same setup. I do particularly like that she only includes a few examples of her work, as opposed to inundating the websurfer with story after story.
Here’s where I don’t like it. Maybe it’s just me, Lord knows I’m not the most computer savvy girl, but when I went to the “editing” link, all it gave me was an explanatory blurb, but didn’t show my any examples! Bummer!
However, I do like her “web design” and “visual design” pages. Clean work, with the same setup as before; little picture with a little blurb, and you click on it and it takes you to that particular piece of work. Simple, which is how I like my webpages; so easy a monkey banging on the keyboard can navigate it!
All in all, I really, really like Ms. Houghton’s page. It doesn’t overwhelm you with words or picture or needless information or graphics of flash or other crap. There’s a few well-chosen examples of her work means less scrolling, too! (My developing carpal tunnel thanks you for that, Ms. H!) I suppose the only bone I have to pick is to make it easier to link to the “editing” page!
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