Interactive – Digital Me – Wireframes

When designing my wireframe for my online portfolio I attempted to balance usability and interesting design to create an experience that was displaying my work and also showing a thought out layout. Having a well-designed portfolio in itself should help when showing work as it shows diverse designing skill on a different platform to that of the work. In the wireframe I have used polygon shapes and triangles because when researching into websites I found a lot of them used boxes, rectangles and linear navigation. This was in keeping with the classic ‘F Shape’ of commercial website design that the user finds it easy to navigate round when their eye naturally leads them to the upper left corner of the page due to western literature.
Well established websites like
www.guardian.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk
www.ebay.co.uk
These make use of the ‘F Shape’ navigation however they are commercial websites that catalogue their products and my portfolio would showcase my work in a clean simple environment.
These are examples of a photographers who use portfolios that showcase their work with a minimalist website.
http://iamjordangreen.com/
http://www.richyleeson.com/
http://markforrer.tumblr.com/
I found a few websites which didn’t use this and felt they were more dynamic, sharp and edgy. They encouraged the user to examine the site whilst browsing the content but in a way which was easy so did not cause frustration.
http://www.neotokio.it/
http://www.weareroyale.com/
http://www.wanda.net/uk
A few websites I have looked at make use of a vertically scrolling, one page layout where all the content is on one long page but however can be fast tracked to by floating navigation.
http://inze.it/
http://www.graydenpoper.com/
http://www.leaderstheconference.com/
http://www.jennyandgrayden.com/
http://willviles.com/
http://fieldnotes.iancoyle.com/
http://ryanscherf.net/
http://thisistommy.com/
http://www.kitchensinkstudios.com/
http://editsquarterly.com/
I wanted to use this in a subtle way and not to create too many shapes that were aggressive and angry looking. By using softer text I think this could be achieved. I will keep a consistent layout and character from page to page, this is important for the usability and the flow from the splash page to the rest of the site.  For the navigation I will retain the simple white polygon shapes which will fit together like shattered glass.