26 comments

  • Tomas Rolejček, over 4 years ago

    My honest experience with your site - page opened, TLDR, page closed

    EDIT: I shared this because I think I am not only one who could have same experience. When I visited the site I was overwhelmed by too much text and I did not know where to look. There is no visual element which is pleasing my eyes and helping me to be interested in. For example, are stats and social icons so important to be right below the header? For me it was another element that took my attention away from great work of Hamed.

    5 points
    • Joe Baker, over 4 years ago

      Very insightful. Thank you for sharing.

      -4 points
    • Zach HamedZach Hamed, over 4 years ago

      Thanks for the feedback! It's definitely more dense that a normal site I'd make, but was aiming for a feel similar to magazine spreads like this:

      Magazine

      1 point
    • Denis RojcykDenis Rojcyk, over 4 years ago

      I share the same sentiment. This must be the most beautiful-impossible-to-scan website I've ever seen. So just to break it down:

      • I don't mind combining serifs with sans serifs but there seems to be no logical/structure behind how they are used
      • The way the website is structured seems like it is a website made for you (author) rather than for a visitor. I don't really see why should I care how much you weight. Or how many steps you took yesterday. I find it to be very gimmicky (I feel the same way about how many coffees somebody drank yesterday)
      • If you want to show off your front end/design skills it works perfectly. But if you want the visitor to find value in your website, I think it fails in this regard.
      • The most interesting content on the website (articles and work experience) is hidden almost at the bottom.
      2 points
  • Jim RenaudJim Renaud, over 4 years ago

    You live in the Statue of Liberty? Bet the views are amazing.

    3 points
  • Michael Woodruff, over 4 years ago

    Love it. Unique. Are you calling a bunch of different APIs to get the data on the page?Can you give a brief overview how did you build it? Like the color themes as well.

    3 points
    • Jacob JJacob J, over 4 years ago

      I've got the same question, mainly about the currently reading books. Are you using the goodreads API?

      3 points
      • Zach HamedZach Hamed, over 4 years ago

        Yep, using the Goodreads API for that — was surprisingly easy to pull from.

        0 points
        • Jacob JJacob J, over 4 years ago

          I was having trouble using ajax on the front end running into CORS issues. Did you use a backend to access the API?

          0 points
    • Zach HamedZach Hamed, over 4 years ago

      Thanks! Some details:

      • Steps and weight data go to Healthkit, which I then upload data from using an iOS app (no easy API I could find for that — I used to use Numerous which has since shut down)

      • Productivity is coming from Rescuetime, which I highly recommend as a way to keep track of how you're spending time at a high level. "Productive" time is defined by category and customizable by you (for me, code/design/reading is productive, social media and email are not)

      • Medium posts coming via a Medium RSS feed, books coming via Goodreads API

      • Grid is all CSS grid and Tachyons. Highly recommend CSS grid — this was my fist time using it for a full project and it's very easy to lay things out. Small tip, start from mobile and work to desktop, even if desktop is more complicated/customized. I did the opposite and ended up with lots of edge cases on mobile

      • Themes done with very little Javascript and CSS variables, and were inspired by these color swatches usually seen on packaging

      1 point
  • Zach HamedZach Hamed, over 4 years ago

    Any and all feedback welcome!

    3 points
  • Morgan CarterMorgan Carter, over 4 years ago

    Love it. There are a couple of things you might want to fix though:

    1. The weight counter isn't working for me (says "0 POUNDS, AS OF 17786.54 DAYS AGO"). Everything else works
    2. The first few blog links aren't clickable because they're being overlapped by the books above them.
    3. The blog link hover-colours don't change colour when you change theming up top. This was a super nice touch and works everywhere else.
    2 points
    • Zach HamedZach Hamed, over 4 years ago

      Huge thanks — fixed #1, can't recreate 2 or 3. What browser were you on?

      0 points
      • Nate vNate v, over 4 years ago

        I had the same issue on Chrome 69 on macOS (for #2)

        0 points
      • Morgan CarterMorgan Carter, over 4 years ago

        On Chrome 69.

        2) I can click the "The Art and Science of a Mac Menubar App" but not "Bye, Google Maps." It's being overlapped by .books.books-1. I'm on a 15" laptop, so 1440px width.

        3) You have

        a { color: var(--main-color); }

        but

        .writing li:hover { background-color: rgba(40, 92, 255, 0.05); }

        The hover state should use the variable colour too.

        1 point
  • Ollie BarkerOllie Barker, over 4 years ago

    Wow looks awesome but I had no idea where to start.

    2 points
  • Thomas Michael SemmlerThomas Michael Semmler, over 4 years ago

    fantastic!

    1 point
  • Lucian .esLucian .es, over 4 years ago

    Love the use of grids and color themes ;)

    1 point
  • Account deleted over 4 years ago

    Cool vibe but this website has no hierarchy whatsoever.

    0 points
  • Jordan ConnorJordan Connor, over 4 years ago

    Immediate thoughts were "Wow, well then..."

    Interesting layouts with current type and colours. I'd say that there might be a few to many font sizes in such a little space. Maybe a bit more spacing / white space (especially above the fold), but loving the direction!

    What did you build it with?

    0 points
  • Per VPer V, over 4 years ago

    Busy as f*ck. But I love it! Far from your everyday portfolio, something people will remember, even if they "page open, page close" visit your site.

    0 points
  • Aman MathurAman Mathur, over 4 years ago

    Looks amazing! I agree that at first glance it is hard to determine where you should focus, making it quite difficult to get through the whole page. You might be able to help this by segmenting the sections more or using some form of evident text/visual hierarchy (just my opinion).

    Being able to change the theme with the colors at the top was cool :) My favorite theme was dark-magenta (with white bg)

    0 points
  • Edgar Chaparro, over 4 years ago

    you still got the gatsby favicon just a heads up!

    0 points