Below is a checklist and some evaluation criteria for reflecting on the effectiveness of your site:
Checklist of Basic Components
The following items should almost definitely be present on your professional personal website:
- Basic information about your professional interests, including:
- Name
- Education
- List of professional licenses/certifications
- Contact information
- Access to a pdf version of your resume (or a link to a LinkedIn profile with this information in it)
- Additional highlighting of your professional activities or accomplishments. On your website you could be presenting artifacts, images, recordings, reflections, or rich media that engages visitors in learning about your experiences by going beyond the basic info on your resume. Activities or accomplishments highlighted could include things such as:
- Research interests or publications
- Projects
- Teaching or volunteer experiences
- Presentations
- Honors or awards
- Rich media (recordings, images) of skills
Criteria for Evaluating Your Site
Below are some questions to help you start reflecting on your site. You should try to answer these questions from the perspective of a potential employer viewing your site. Remember, it can be helpful to ask someone else to review your site and provide answers to these questions.
- How attractive is your site?
- Do the color choices make sense?
- Are media high enough quality?
- How readable is your site?
- Are there no grammar or other mechanical issues?
- Is text not overly long, and is it broken into manageable chunks?
- How usable is your site?
- Is the site easy to navigate?
- Is specific information easy to find? (resume, contact info, etc.)
- How accessible is your site?
- Do images have “alt” text added to them describing their content, and do videos have captions or transcripts available?
- Does your site function properly and look and appear correctly on screens of different sizes (desktop, tablet, and phone)?
- How ethical/legal is your site?
- Is your site honest in the information it presents?
- Have images been used to which you have usage rights?
- What is your overall evaluation of the site?
- Does this site present a professional representation of your work?
- Is there anything on the site that would make someone hesitant to hire you?
- Is there anything missing on the site, or which you think needs further explanation?
