TO: Professor Muesing

FROM: Jacob Shaw

DATE: December 6, 2014
SUBJECT: ePortfolio Memo

Design
My ePortfolio was designed with several goals in mind. I wanted to design a functioning
website that was visually appealing and retained all content that I created throughout Fall
2014. I felt that content was the primary goal of my portfolio thus directly contributing to
the design of my ePortfolio as a whole. I appreciate simplicity and I wanted to keep my
website dynamic yet simple for the users. When a user first visits my website they are
greeted by a very simple landing page. On the landing page I included a picture of
myself, key main navigation links, and buttons that link to each of my projects. The main
navigation links include: home, projects, memo, and contact.
Visual Choices
I chose to include several visuals throughout my website that includes interactive PDFs
and visually appealing formatting. I also included pictures of myself and of my work.
While It would have been easy to simply copy and paste text from my projects into the
website, I believed it would be more accurate and visually appealing to include
interactive PDF documents. By using PDF documents and embedding them into the
website using Scribd I was able to show my audience the same work that I turned in
throughout the semester. Pasting plain text would have been boring and would be
meaningless to the audience. I tried several themes before deciding on my final ePortfolio
theme. I chose the yellow and black theme because it differed from the color schemes of
my projects. I usually make everything blue or green but I did not want to overwhelm my
viewers by making everything blue and green.
Purpose
The purpose of my ePortfolio is to show my audience the work that I completed while in
Technical Communication and to demonstrate how I developed throughout the year. I
came into technical communication with little knowledge and experience in technical
communication. I knew that someone had to write instruction manuals and coordinate
text across entire corporations, but I had no idea how much work actually goes into
technical communication. Taking this class proved vital to my major. During the fall
semester I encountered several instances that technical communication involves

http://jshaw35.wix.com/engl-2116

engineers directly. As a prospective engineering student I found my projects especially

useful in preparing me for upper level classes and a career as an engineer.
Intended Audience
My intended audience is individuals at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I
designed this website to demonstrate the work I completed and how I developed as the
semester progressed. As I developed my technical communication improved. To better
display my development in technical communication I have my projects in order of
completion. My first projects begin at the top and my last project sits at the bottom.
Link Choices
As I chose my four main links I kept my overall goal in mind. I wanted content to be the
main purpose of my website. The main navigation includes: home, projects, memo, and
contact. The home button does exactly what its titled and takes the user back to my
website landing page. The project button separates each of my projects in ascending
order. I found that separating the projects into individual pages helped clarify each
project and all of tis contents.
Successes/Challenges
The biggest challenge I ran into as I created my ePortfolio on wix.com was the formatting
and layout of my content. The hard work had already been completed throughout the Fall
2014 semester. All of the content was created and modified multiple times throughout the
year leading up to the final versions of all projects. I found it difficult to embed my
projects how I wanted. I found it extremely annoying when I uploaded a Word Document
to Scribd the formatting would change drastically. I ultimately had to convert all of my
projects to PDFs and uploading them to Scribd. This process wasnt difficult but it was
very time consuming.
I believe my ePortfolio is successful in displaying all of my content in a minimalistic
manner. I also believe the layout and color choices for my website are visually appealing
and are easy for my audience to look at. I wanted to include a copy of my resume but I
setup the website to grow with me. For that reason I decided to allow people to request a
resume. This way, those requesting my resume will always receive the most up-to-date
version.
Thoughts on Project
Overall I found this project useful in viewing my work throughout this semester and
reflecting on what I learned. I believe this ePortfolio will be of use to me in the future
because it will provide me with documents and examples of technical writing and
communication that I created.
http://jshaw35.wix.com/engl-2116