For the second monthly review we were told to analyze a “one page website” from the enormous list at onepagelove.com. Honestly, it took me a while to finally decide on a site. I browsed through several sites but none of them really appealed to me at the time. Eventually I came across a page that listed onepagelove.com’s top twenty websites of 2013. Thinking that this was a promising lead, I skimmed through the list and soon came across the website of a Mr. Robby Leonardi (rleonardi.com/interactive-resume).
The first thing that caught my eye about this site was actually the screenshot onepagelove.com provided of the website. The vibrant colors and the overall cartoony video game feel really drew me in. Plus, I noticed that it was an “interactive resume”. Without any hesitation I began my investigation.
When I’m taken to Mr. Leonardi’s website, a loading scroll appears with an indeterminate amount of loading progress waiting to fill. I had no idea how long this would take, it could take one second or it could take a minute probably depending on the level of interactivity of the site. Luckily, my laptop is not entirely a piece of crap, so it loaded in about ten seconds or so.
Once the page loads, I’m presented with a tiny superhero character falling onto the screen (which now looks like the initial screenshot), and the instructions to scroll up and down, or use the up and down arrow keys to navigate. I decide to use the arrow keys and the little character moves across the brightly colored video game themed screen. I notice immediately that when make the character walk a very short distance, about “two steps”, he lags a bit. Yet whenever I hold in the key, the lag still appears but then the character speeds up considerably to a point where it’s almost too fast. (Once I’m done going through the site once I end up going through it once more to try the scroll wheel. It works much better than the arrow keys in my opinion.)
As the superhero moves across the screen, information images pop up in the background in the form of “levels” like how a video game is set up. This images show various things about Mr. Leonardi’s experience in design programs, his previous design related work, and the awards he has earned over the years. It’s interesting to note that sometimes the images get too cramped if you happen to have a smaller screen like my laptop does.
It is also somewhat strange to me that although you only seem to hold down (or scroll down); you appear to move in several directions at different points of the site. When you begin you move to the right of the screen. Once you pass through level one to level two, you “jump down” into an underwater lever, then “jump back up” when you reach level three, and even continue your path upwards in a hot air balloon for level four.
At the end of your journey is where you can contact Mr. Leonardi; whether it’s through the contact box he has on his website, or by clicking on the links to Facebook or Twitter that he has linked in the right-hand corner of the page. Also a note: this contact area is the only clickable area on the site.
My overall opinion of the site: it was actually really cool. I kept wondering exactly how Mr. Leonardi pulled off what he did (I suppose experience does that), and then being extremely jealous that I cannot accomplish that quality work yet. All the colors are solid (no textures) and extremely vibrant, yet none seem to stand out more than the others.
As I’ve mentioned before; there is an obvious video games theme going on with this site. But I am curious why exactly he chose to go in that direction with this theme for his site. No where does it really mention anything regarding video games, so I wish that maybe he would’ve at least put why he designed the site like this. Maybe he was just in the mood for video games, who knows.
Again, my only other “problem” with the site is the navigation. Don’t get me wrong; the navigation is very easy, just up an down. But the fact that the page moves in different directions instead of up and down makes me a little uneasy for some reason.
In the end I’m glad that I chose to take a look at this site. It’s crazy how it works, and it’s really cool to look at. I’d give it an 8.5/10 on the “super awesome website scale” that I just made up.