Professional portfolio feedback

Here is feedback on your professional portfolios. Note that I am just sampling various projects and not providing comprehensive feedback. Most portfolios exhibit one or more of these problems; don’t assume that because your portfolio is not mentioned, it’s OK. Conversely, I am only showing one problem per portfolio—if yours is mentioned, it may have additional problems beyond the one I singled out!

Makes sure that images display:

If you have a URL in a file, use Markdown to make it clickable.

3. You must have three projects.

4. Make summary images square

So that cards look uniform, make summary images square.

5. Make images fit into page.

See TechFolio Image Formatting for instructions on how to make images responsive.

7. Lack of detail on projects and essays.

One of the benefits of a professional portfolio over a resume or LinkedIn profile is that you can provide more than a couple of sentences of detail about projects. Project descriptions and essays should be roughly a “page” of text in length–think 2-3 significant paragraphs, or 5-6 shorter ones.

8. Bio section should not contain “empty” commas and bullets

If you don’t have any work, activities, or awards, then delete those sections:

9. Only one essay.

You are required to complete two essays:

10. Images should add value.

It’s tempting to just google around and throw some images into your projects and essays that are pretty generic. Resist this temptation. Images should be directly related and add some value. Huge, generic images are a turn-off:

11. Use gradients carefully.

If you use gradients, be sure to provide CSS so that it doesn’t “repeat” if you need to scroll the page.

Alexander Lum and Jackie Wong provided recommenations to make gradients work correctly on pages that require scrolling. I have not tested this personally.

background-attachment: fixed;

or

height: 100%;
margin: 0;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-attachment: fixed;

Don’t forget to review the guidelines.

Finally, it’s always good to check the guidelines: