Back toward the end of March, shortly after my previous site update, I was browsing the Indie Hackers forums and found a post by an experienced UX designer offering quick "free wins" on website designs in exchange for feedback on his website, Refined.report. I'm usually more of a lurker on online communities, but NOT THIS TIME.
After I gave his site some minor feedback, he audited the hero page of my website. Dakota Sumner (the guy behind Refined) was super professional and gave me great actionable pointers. It took about two days of development to implement the new features his advice inspired, and I spent most of that time dealing with webpack when I didn't need to, drawing tech logos by hand because I thought it'd be cute, and getting two divs to sit on top of each other. Here are the other updates I pushed:
- Changed the color palette: That green was not it. đ¤ĸ
- Replaced the tech skillbars with icons: Yes, I drew them all đĒĻ
- Updated my picture so you can see my face: I'm professional đŠđŊâđŧ
- Rewrote my bio in first-person and added paragraph breaks đī¸âđ¨ī¸
- Added hidden doodles to my picture đą
I'm happy with the new landing page (tbh I'll probably hate it again within the month), and I'm super grateful for Dakota's feedback. Design is a tricky little son of a gun, but I'm slowly internalizing that less is more and that KISS applies to design just as much as it does to programming. Keep it simple, shawty.