I'm proud to have been chosen by Volodymyr Severynenko, a talented Product Designer, to design and develop his personal portfolio website. Responsive, modern, and minimalistic, the website showcases Volodymyr's impressive body of work and skills in an elegant way.
It is compatible with Safari (which was a big challenge), Chrome, and Firefox, and works seamlessly across all screen sizes, from mobile to desktop.
It's one of the best portfolios I've seen in a while.
- Radu Vucea, Chief Product Officer, ex-Meta [link]
Challenges & Solutions
- Safari compatibility: Safari has quirks and limitations that make it harder to achieve the same level of performance and functionality as other browsers. I had to use workarounds and hacks to ensure the website worked well on Safari, especially for fluid animations and interactions.
- Understanding and addressing Safari's unique rendering behaviors to maintain consistent visual effects.
- Implementing fallbacks for unsupported CSS properties and JavaScript features.
- Testing regularly on Safari throughout development to catch and fix issues early.
- Responsive design: The website needed to look good and function well across different screen sizes and devices. I relied on media queries, flexible layouts, and adaptive images to ensure a seamless experience everywhere.
- Utilizing CSS Grid and Flexbox to create fluid layouts that adapt to various screen sizes.
- Implementing responsive typography and scalable vector graphics (SVGs) for crisp visuals on all devices.
- Testing on multiple devices and screen sizes to guarantee consistency.
- Performance optimization: The website had to load quickly and run smoothly, even with complex animations and interactions. I optimized the code, images, and assets to reduce loading times and improve performance.
- Using tools such as Vercel Analytics, Lighthouse (Chrome), and Speed Insights to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.
- Writing a script to reduce the size and weight of images and videos for faster loading.
- Implementing lazy loading for images and other heavy assets to improve initial load speed.
- Accessibility: The website needed to be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. I followed best practices and guidelines, such as using semantic HTML, providing alternative text for images, and ensuring keyboard navigation.
- Using semantic HTML elements to improve screen reader compatibility.
- SEO: To improve visibility and ranking, I optimized the website for search engines using proper meta tags, structured data, and clean URLs.
- Implementing meta tags and Open Graph tags to enhance search engine visibility and social media sharing.
- Using clean, descriptive URLs and a logical site structure.
- Ensuring fast load times and mobile-friendliness, both of which are important SEO ranking factors.
Technologies Used
- Next.js
- React
- TypeScript
- Motion (animation framework)
- Leaflet (maps)
- Matter.js (physics engine)
- Lenis (smooth scrolling)
- OGL (WebGL / 3D)
- Vercel (hosting)
- Vercel Analytics/Speed Insights
- Figma
- Gitlab
Role
- Senior Frontend Development
- Performance Optimization
- SEO Optimization
- Accessibility