Designing for the Web

1 Developing My Idea

Traditionally, biographies present a person’s life as a linear collection of facts such as where they were born, where they lived, what they studied, and what they did. However, I feel my identity is shaped by people, places, relationships, memories, and experiences.

For my website, I want to make a personal biography that feels more visual, interconnected, and personal rather than a polished, professional portfolio or résumé.

My website will allow someone to explore information about where I come from, the people around me, important places, memories, and other parts of my identity rather than a conventional biography.

2 Discovery & Research

For this stage, I looked into websites that are focused on providing recollective information about places, people, activities.

Website #1: Cairn

Cairn is a website that organizes memory centered data related to locations, such as photos, videos, memories shared, the people who were there and more. It is like an interactive map where people can pin memorophilia and invite other community members to interact. I particularly like using map as a placeholder of accumulated memories, and I could similarly use locations to anchor information about my life.

Website #2: Bruno Simon

Bruno Simon's website is an interactive 3D world where you can drive around and learn more about him. I really like how the navigation became a tool to make the website more interactive and dynamic. I definetely want to get to do something similar and explore how much interactiveness I can add to my website with the skills that I will acquire.

Website #3: Schweet Life

Schweet Life is a personal blog that documents the creator’s life through photos, experiences, memories, and everyday moments. I like how the website functions almost like a digital scrapbook. I also like the categorization, namely "Soul". Maybe I could have an hierarchy of categories, like different layers that build up an make me who I am.

3 Target Audience

My target audience could be anyone who wants to learn more about me, including friends, family or any one else inquiring to know more about the accumulation of my past experiences and how they shaped me. I want the person who visited the website be able to 1- start a conversation with me 2- identify what common interests we might share 3- understand what kind of person I am clearly.

4 Introductory Framing and Concluding Call to Action

The website introduces itself as a personal archive of my memories, places, and experiences. I want visitors to explore it freely, like digging through an old computer or digital scrapbook. By the end, I want them to reflect on their own memories.

5 Moodboard

I wanted to aesthetic to pull fron digital kitsch and early 2000s computer nostalgia. Think bright colors, old desktop interfaces, chunky icons, surreal backgrounds, and slightly awkward early-digital graphics.

I grew up around the afterlife of that visual language through older computers, games, websites, and media, so it still feels familiar to me. I like that it feels nostalgic without being overly sentimental. That fits a website about my memories, because I want it to feel less like a formal biography and more like opening an old computer and wandering through pieces of my life.

6 Thumbnails and Sketches

I want the home page to immediately take the viewer to the 'digital world'. I want it to feel like they're in an old Windows computer - something that is very reminescent of my childhood, and I want it to feel three dimensional. I thought the home page could serve as the landing, with the computer logos/apps being the navigation anchors.

I also want to try my best to add animations, or at least some movement when hovered on the logos. Such as the camera flashing, folder's opening, something coming out of the trash.

I want the "people" page, dedicated to my friends/family be a Guess Who Board - a game I grew up playing a lot. This game usually has a set of charachters, hiding behind a window when you first start the game. Similar to the game, I want all the windows to be closed, being getting opened with a hover, revealing the characters.

Since I have many sets of people in my life, I'm deciding between having seperate boards, for "Family", "College Friends", "Childhood Bestriends"... or putting everyone in just the same board

For my "Places" page, I want to have a viewmaster type of toy, and a continous image of places that are monumental for me. I want to make it so that whenever you click a certain button the photograph on the viewmaster changes, along with the text about the signficance of the place.

I could talk about how each place has shaped me and my relation to it (how long I lived there, etc. etc.) Viewmaster type analog photo viewing toys being a nostalgic part of my childhood, no longer exist anymore. It could be a nice tribute.

DESIGNING FOR THE WEB