I had originally chosen Weebly as the platform for my EPortfolio. I made this decision because I had never created my own website before, and after experimenting with several options, I found that Weebly was the simplest, most easy to use option, at least for me. I wanted my site to have a simplistic, minimalist look and be very easy for users to navigate. I had seen sites filled with many different colors, which definitely caught my attention; however, I feel as though users could be just as drawn to a page using less powerful colors like blacks, whites, and grays. I also think that this could oftentimes be less distracting and more appealing as compared to an extremely colorful page that could be overwhelming and even sometimes perplexing.
I had gathered most of the artifacts I wanted to post on my portfolio and was doing my best to organize them in the way the I had envisioned, but truthfully I wasn’t in love the options Weebly was giving me. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it to change my platform entirely or just do my best to work with what Weebly was giving me to create a site I was happy with. I didn’t hear about Wix until a few weeks ago and obviously I didn’t know much about it. The funniest part about making my decision to switch over to Wix was that I actually saw a commercial on TV about it. The advertisement was all about businesses being able to create their own websites and personalize it to fit their company’s needs. I’ll admit, it wasn’t the commercial itself that convinced me to start building my portfolio with Wix, but it definitely intrigued me enough to start playing around with the site, and I eventually realized that definitely preferred Wix over Weebly.
At first, I really liked the different templates Wix had to offer. They broke them down into different categories such as photography portfolios, architecture portfolios, writing portfolios, etc. The great part about this is that you don’t have to select a template based on the artifacts that you post on your page. Instead, you can edit these different templates and add your own artifacts. The template decision is mainly based on the look you want for your page.
I am still in the process of adding my artifacts and organizing my site but the general idea is to separate my pages into five different sections: Home, About Me, Freshman Year, Sophomore Year, and Junior Year. Each of these pages can be accessed through a bar on the top of the page. Lists of my pieces of writing also drop down when hovering over these different page titles on the top bar. While this is a very simple way for users to access my writing, they could also be accessed through pictures on each of the main pages. Each picture is in some way related to the piece of writing it corresponds to. I feel like these pictures give users an extra incentive to read my writing. Once users click on these pictures or on the titles in the top bar, they can read my writing in the form of a page by page slideshow. I thought this was a great way to add a different type of media or web writing. I think its also a clean way to display my writing, giving users an easy way to navigate from page to page.
There is still much work that needs to be done on my portfolio before I my portfolio is complete but it is definitely on the right track. I am really happy with the decision to change my platform from Weebly to Wix. I think it was the right decision, and I think I am definitely going to be more happy with my final portfolio as a result
