Ask HN: How can I improve my personal website?
20 comments
Personally, I don't like it.
As for positives, I think you achieved your goal with the design and interface. It's clear what you were trying to accomplish, and aside from a couple of minor issues, it works, and you executed the concept well.
Now, the negatives. During my first visit I closed the page within a second, and I was going to visit another post on HN instead. I saw the page, figured it was another gimmicky 'terminal' site, and didn't want to go along for the ride. However, I gave in after I closed it, and thought I'd make an effort to leave feedback. So, I revisited and typed 'hello'. The site then asked if I needed help. I typed 'no' because I just said hello, didn't need help or a tutorial, and I wanted to see the content. Well, apparently 'no' was an invalid command, so I typed 'yes', and that caused the navigation to display. In short, skip the help step completely, it's annoying and serves no purpose. Either go from 'hello' to the navigation, or go straight to the navigation when the site loads.
My only other feedback is to scrap the idea and setup a normal website. If I'm visiting your site, I'm looking for your qualifications, and I certainly don't want to jump through hoops and waste time playing a terminal game. In my opinion, it seems amateurish. I'd much rather prefer a one page website that starts with your photo, name, a one line introduction, a few sentences about yourself, a list of qualifications, projects you've worked on, and contact information. I want to scroll down that page in about 5 seconds, and know if I want to contact you.
As for positives, I think you achieved your goal with the design and interface. It's clear what you were trying to accomplish, and aside from a couple of minor issues, it works, and you executed the concept well.
Now, the negatives. During my first visit I closed the page within a second, and I was going to visit another post on HN instead. I saw the page, figured it was another gimmicky 'terminal' site, and didn't want to go along for the ride. However, I gave in after I closed it, and thought I'd make an effort to leave feedback. So, I revisited and typed 'hello'. The site then asked if I needed help. I typed 'no' because I just said hello, didn't need help or a tutorial, and I wanted to see the content. Well, apparently 'no' was an invalid command, so I typed 'yes', and that caused the navigation to display. In short, skip the help step completely, it's annoying and serves no purpose. Either go from 'hello' to the navigation, or go straight to the navigation when the site loads.
My only other feedback is to scrap the idea and setup a normal website. If I'm visiting your site, I'm looking for your qualifications, and I certainly don't want to jump through hoops and waste time playing a terminal game. In my opinion, it seems amateurish. I'd much rather prefer a one page website that starts with your photo, name, a one line introduction, a few sentences about yourself, a list of qualifications, projects you've worked on, and contact information. I want to scroll down that page in about 5 seconds, and know if I want to contact you.
It tries to be both technical and conversational while committing to neither. On first glance it looks like a terminal bot but I don't think it speaks towards your potential skills.
For example it says "Why don't you say hello?" - my first instinct was to say "hello" but it responded with "do you need any help?" to which I replied "yes." Nothing happened - a net negative interaction.
Throw out the frills. Sell yourself and your skills - if you want to be hired. Demonstrate what someone would expect from your work. Generic and accessible goes a lot further than quirky obfuscation. In many circumstances, the terminal expert is not the only one looking at your portfolio.
For example it says "Why don't you say hello?" - my first instinct was to say "hello" but it responded with "do you need any help?" to which I replied "yes." Nothing happened - a net negative interaction.
Throw out the frills. Sell yourself and your skills - if you want to be hired. Demonstrate what someone would expect from your work. Generic and accessible goes a lot further than quirky obfuscation. In many circumstances, the terminal expert is not the only one looking at your portfolio.
Mobile friendly would be a major point too especially if someone is looking you up on the go. That way you at least have a working fallback.
Thank you for your feedback! Yes, a mobile version is in the works. I definitely agree.
Thank you for your feedback.
When you replied "yes." and nothing happened, do you mean that no reply was rendered on the page? Or do you mean that the rendered reply wasn't meaningful? What would make this interaction more positive?
I agree that I can definitely be selling myself and my skills more.
When you replied "yes." and nothing happened, do you mean that no reply was rendered on the page? Or do you mean that the rendered reply wasn't meaningful? What would make this interaction more positive?
I agree that I can definitely be selling myself and my skills more.
The top of the CV in PDF form gave me way more information about yourself than the website gave for 4ish minutes clicking around.
I learnt that you'd into scripting languages, have (claim, it's a CV) database skill, bunch of infrastructure skills. The CV is pretty good given that's what you're trying to put across, a technologist with an infrastructure/scale twist.
The website before finding the CV made me thing 'Is this guy React or Angular'? And nothing more.
I learnt that you'd into scripting languages, have (claim, it's a CV) database skill, bunch of infrastructure skills. The CV is pretty good given that's what you're trying to put across, a technologist with an infrastructure/scale twist.
The website before finding the CV made me thing 'Is this guy React or Angular'? And nothing more.
Perhaps you could consider, as another poster suggested, that you're talking to two different audiences. One is technical.. a 'terminal expert'. And one probably isn't.
Have you ever had a simple ping command running on your terminal and had someone exclaim "Wow! That looks technical!" with a hint of fear in their voice?
Perhaps you should offer the user a chance to explore this terminal interface of their own accord? "Click here to see my technical portfolio" - which then takes the user to a page of different apps, this one included. And otherwise default to a less technically demanding interface to start with.
You may get lucky, and the recruiter may be totally technical. But even if they are technical, and your page isn't immediately a terminal, allowing them an opportunity to easily get to it may be a good compromise.
Hope that helps!
Have you ever had a simple ping command running on your terminal and had someone exclaim "Wow! That looks technical!" with a hint of fear in their voice?
Perhaps you should offer the user a chance to explore this terminal interface of their own accord? "Click here to see my technical portfolio" - which then takes the user to a page of different apps, this one included. And otherwise default to a less technically demanding interface to start with.
You may get lucky, and the recruiter may be totally technical. But even if they are technical, and your page isn't immediately a terminal, allowing them an opportunity to easily get to it may be a good compromise.
Hope that helps!
Not a major issue, nor does it deal with your website but - your resume should be in LaTeX!
How to:
- Copy the source code from a .tex template[0] you like.
- Create an account at ShareLaTeX[1].
- Start a new blank project, name it 'firstnamelastnameresume' (always save your resume with your first name, last name, followed by the word resume).
- Delete the code in the main.tex file and paste the code from the .tex from the template you would like to use.
- Edit the file with your content.
- Recompile to preview resume.
- Then download the PDF.
[0]: https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/
[1]: https://www.sharelatex.com
How to:
- Copy the source code from a .tex template[0] you like.
- Create an account at ShareLaTeX[1].
- Start a new blank project, name it 'firstnamelastnameresume' (always save your resume with your first name, last name, followed by the word resume).
- Delete the code in the main.tex file and paste the code from the .tex from the template you would like to use.
- Edit the file with your content.
- Recompile to preview resume.
- Then download the PDF.
[0]: https://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/
[1]: https://www.sharelatex.com
I would personally remove the "objective" portion from the resumes. It's known to all parties involved what you are looking for is a job, you don't need to spell it out to them and it uses space that could be better used.
I would make the terminal navigation optional. Have the welcome message show the pages, and make them clickable. That wasy technical people can still explore the TTY based website, but 'pure' recruiters could also find their way.
It's a cool idea but I think it would be better as a project your site links to then the site itself.
Keep in mind the main reason people are going to your site, they want to judge you for hiring. Also remember this person has probably looked at a lot of resumes already and is planning to look at a lot more. The terminal interface is fun but if I was looking to hire I would close it and move on because it's going to take way to much time for me to get to the information I want.
Keep in mind the main reason people are going to your site, they want to judge you for hiring. Also remember this person has probably looked at a lot of resumes already and is planning to look at a lot more. The terminal interface is fun but if I was looking to hire I would close it and move on because it's going to take way to much time for me to get to the information I want.
You can be more friendlier and intuitive with the text design - I went to projects mistyped 1 the first time (used "a") and then tried 1 again and it seems to have put me back at the base level.
If you can make the text interface as easy to noobs as point and click you will make a good statement.
If you can make the text interface as easy to noobs as point and click you will make a good statement.
Hey,
just a couple of ideas:
- arrow keys are not moving the visible cursor (although they are moving the cursor position, backspace removes different character than from the visible cursor position)
- why not a command for opening a pdf from the command line?
- provide a page for non technical people, so they can see something without the command line
- add more help info
- why not pdf in console text output?
- a the beginning there is a question "do you need any help", when I just answer it with 'no' I get error
- arrow keys are not moving the visible cursor (although they are moving the cursor position, backspace removes different character than from the visible cursor position)
- why not a command for opening a pdf from the command line?
- provide a page for non technical people, so they can see something without the command line
- add more help info
- why not pdf in console text output?
- a the beginning there is a question "do you need any help", when I just answer it with 'no' I get error
If you go through the trouble of emulating a shell, the least you could do is to make sure most commonly used commands worked (like ls, cat, tail etc) but maybe that is just me.
I would probably have made this as a seperate gimmick on a "normal" web site.
I would probably have made this as a seperate gimmick on a "normal" web site.
I think this is cool but I agree with others that it may miss the target for some recruiters. There should be an 'easy' option that is more like a typical portfolio site.
A small UX suggestion is that the projects command should be able to take an integer as an argument and show that project e.g.
$ projects 1
^ takes you directly to the capstone project view.
A small UX suggestion is that the projects command should be able to take an integer as an argument and show that project e.g.
$ projects 1
^ takes you directly to the capstone project view.
[deleted]
it should have keyboard shortcuts which will help visitor to not type the full word (Ref. https://github.com/madrobby/keymaster)
time, it's all about time or lack of it. So if a person is hiring and goes to your website... they aren't going to type help, then resume, then open the pdf... which could be infested with malware (just kidding). too many clicks.
research potential companies you might want to work for, pick up the phone, network etc
It should support tablets
Does not work on mobile.
Is there anything unintuitive about the flow or layout of the site? Is any of the content lacking?
Here is my website: genohta.com