Find a website that you think is really well designed and write a justification of why you think this is a good design.

1. An overview of my report

From my perspective, this website about one linguistics scholar’s ePortfolio is easy to navigate and has excellent readability due to the minimalist layout design and consistent color scheme and typography. The readers may not focus too much on the appearance of her sites instead of the written content. The eportfolio also includes interactive elements, such as hyperlinks, visual timelines, and multimedia, which provides a richer experience for viewers.

There are 5 parts of my report including layout, use of graphics, color scheme, clear and concise content, and ways to improve.

Here is the website link Https://katelynnlindsey.weebly.com/.

2. Background information about website.

I find this website in the ePortfolio Gallery of Integrative Learning Portfolio Lab at Stanford University at https://eportfolio.stanford.edu/eportfolio-gallery.  Integrative Learning Portfolio Lab helps students work through their digital presence and eportfolios via workshops, courses, meetings with coaches, and more. This is one example of an eportfolio that one ILPL student has developed.

Definition of eportfolio: The electronic portfolio, is a digital version of a traditional portfolio, a digital collection of evidence showcasing a person’s learning or professional journey over time.

Author’s Background: It is designed by Kate Lynn Lindsey who is an assistant professor of linguistics at Boston University, specializing in the documentation and preservation of linguistic diversity. Kate’s eportfolio includes a wide variety of documents like her CV, visual timelines, her slides, photographs she takes, images, and illustrations, which are curated to demonstrate her skills, knowledge, and achievements in linguistics and language.

3. A brief description of the website: its content, its intended audience, and its intended purposes

Content: This website is an ePortfolio that includes lots of Kate’s background information and experiences in academia and profession. It is clear to scroll through her CV, publications, research experience, teaching experience, fieldwork in different language communities, her travel news, her bio, and contact information.

Intended audience:

There might be 4 groups of intended audiences namely

1). Potential faculty members in another university who want to hire another teaching faculty of linguistics,

2). other faculty members at Boston University who can promote her as an associate professor of linguistics,

3). her current students at Boston University or future students who want to know her qualifications and life stories,

4). other students or young professionals who are interested in linguistics and language who are eager to know what leads to a linguistic scholar’s academic and professional development.

Purpose：

Her website is to

1). show future employers to work as a qualified faculty of linguistics in another university,

2). get promoted as an associate professor of linguistics at Boston University,

3). show her students she is a qualified teacher in linguistics in the university,

4). or inform other students or young teachers how to become a linguistics scholar like her.

4. Analysis of the design aspect(s) that you think are extremely well done. Use rhetorical and design terms in your analysis as much as you can. You may compare this site with other sites to highlight its effective design.

Layout:

The design has a left-column menu that presents the main content in a single and vertical column. Readers can follow “F” to read from the left upper corner to the right upper corner, then scroll down to the bottom in the navigation bar, and lastly read the text right to the navigation column. The geometric relationships among different parts are natural as they create great balance and appropriate proportion.

It is easy to find different types of basic information about the assistant professor. I believe the menu headers of “home, CV& Publications, Research, Teaching, Fieldwork& Language Communities, Academic & Travel News, and Bio& Contact ” are clearly labeled and specific. The reason is that the readers can find their way around the site very easily by clicking on the darker mode of headers.

The simplest single-column layout is the easiest for the users to navigate. It is convenient for viewers to choose what they are most interested in about the professor and scroll down to see more content.

Besides, this single column designed with minimalistic principles also fits mobile screens perfectly. Above is the screenshot of the mobile screen, which shows the main content in a well-organized manner in the single-column menu, too.

Use of graphics

There are multiple images or visuals about her research, teaching, teachers, and service to help the viewers deepen their understanding of her contribution, experience, and detailed work in linguistics and help faculty members make effective choice about whether to hire her in the particular field in language studies. Those graphics effectively serve her purpose to convey her idea rather than being used purely as decoration.

Her visuals are unique and eye-catching because they contain interactive elements. The illustrated timeline below shows her specific research in the phonology of Ende, a Pahoturi River language spoken in southern New Guinea. The readers can even “click and drag the timeline” to the right of the column to see her complete stages and the length of finishing a book proposal on Ende grammar.

 

As the cliché goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Images below about “research that inspires me” and “teaching that inspires me” can communicate a lot in a brief amount of time using the same pattern of three columns and they show what inspired her in the career path.

 

The combining images and texts can be more effective than using text alone because different media activate different parts of the readers’ brain, and the more dynamic the readers’ brain is, the more engaged the readers are.

Her photo below as a phonetics teacher in Boston University is more convincing than the words in eportfolio.

Clear & Concise Content:

The content on the website is easily understandable because she uses plain and short language in her bio. It is also very engaging. In “Bio& Contact”, we can see clear large, bold, and cleanly formatted text “write to me here”, and readers can fill in their name and email in the clearly-sequenced boxes with brief instructions to contact the author. Other faculty members can find her contact information easily after clicking on “Bio& Contact” on the homepage.

Color scheme:

Different colors can have different associations and connotations. The pinkish red font on the upper right corner explaining her occupation can show she is an avid and passionate scholar in linguistics because the warm color pinkish red is generally thought to symbolize love and evoke feelings of optimism and energy. Her color scheme is consistent throughout the website.

In contrast, “Mary Kate Hinshaw’s Professional Writing and Rhetoric Portfolio” on other website using black which might have negative connotations of dullness and depression. Readers cannot feel the author is an enthusiastic writer in rhetoric.

https://elon.digication.com/mary_kate_hinshaws_professional_writing_and_rhetoric_portfolio/Home

 

5. Ways to improve:

1). On the homepage, however, the top about “hello” text is not so effective due to poor audience awareness, because to potential faculty members at other universities or her university, it cannot show whether she is proficient or an expert in speaking Idi, a language in Papua New Guinea, although it might be appealing to her students to understand her intriguing life experience as a global traveler.

Therefore, the bottom text next to “Quick Links” should replace the top text as it is more relevant. The previous top text would be better served as a link page.

2). There is inconsistency in the “Quick Links”. The names of the pinkish-red boxes are almost nouns such as “my research”, “my cv” and “my bio”, except for “get involved”. “Get involved” should be replaced with “my teaching” to show her rich teaching experience as the teaching experience is of vital importance in getting another teaching position.

3). In “Bio”, bolding “Assistant Professor of Linguistics” may emphasize.

4). Font colors should be black instead of grey to show more contrast between the text and background.

5). In “Recent News”, it’s not clearly ordered as it is not left justified. It is centered which creates imbalance as the titles of different articles are varying lengths.

6). In “Travel News”, the titles of the news should be shown first and then the dates are next to them.

7). In navigation bars, it needs more variety in the color of the titles and shows emphasis to achieve better readability.

6. Conclusion

Overall, Kate’s eportfolio design is brilliant and effective in connecting with readers and it is easy to browse and review as it packs varied, specific, and complicated ideas using texts, visual timelines, photos, images, and illustrations in the minimalist single-column layout. Her website is not about flashy design so much as it is about conveying words and meaning in her flexible textual writing about her educational background, professional development as well as rich life experience as a linguist. Her digital portfolio can definitely meet its purpose to attract potential employers to hire her in other universities, promote her to an associate professor at Boston University, show her credibility in linguistics teaching to her students, or motivate other students or young professionals interested in this field to become a scholar like her.