Student Portfolio - Ashley Morris [http://www.ashleymorris.co.uk]

Ashley Morris is a student at the University Of The West Of England. His website is uses to show his latest work. The website has a very dark theme which allows the splashes of colour within the header and navigation to stand out and grab the user’s attention.

The dark theme to website does allow his work to stand out but severely affects the contrast between the background and the text. This reduces the usability and in a can make the text difficult to read.

Another issue I had with the website was the use of scrollbars to allow access to most of the website content as they are unnecessary and detract from the overall design.

The website is well built using standards compliant CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) and XHTML (Exstensible Hypertext Markup) and validates to both the XHTML Strict and CSS version guidelines.

Professional Portfolio - TechnoPhobia [http://www.technophobia.com]


On first impression the TechnoPhobia website is bright and welcoming. Despite this it isn’t immediately obvious what the website is about and what service the company provides.

The layout is clean and mainly utilises a two column layout which uses generous spacing and large font sizes. This combined with the large amount of contrast between the page text and the background ensures a high level of usability and accessibility.

The website has a number of navigational options but the main navigation is the top to the page. This navigational style will be familiar to many users and allow them to find the majority of the websites content with relative ease.

Within the interior pages there is a large amount of information about both the company and the clients they have worked with. This is mainly evident within the case studies pages as many include an in-depth insight in the relationship they have with the client and the work they have done for them.

After spending some time using the site I found it easy to use and informative. One of the areas that I feel could be improved is the news area. Although this will probably expand in time I feel extra interaction with the user, such as: comments, would help them to build a strong user base and gain a stronger relationship with the websites visitors.