OVERVIEW
Making civil content easier to understand and explore
The Product
Works By Edward D. Miller is a responsive portfolio website for a retiring professor and published author to display his poetry and nonfiction work.
The Problem
Edward’s work was originally shown on an old Facebook page, making it difficult to organize, discover, and maintain. He needed a dedicated platform that showcased his writing, reflect his personality, and allow him to manage his work independently.
The Role
As the sole designer, I translated Edward’s goals and personality into a responsive website: designed it in Figma, then built the final experience in WordPress.
DEFINE
Establishing priorities for a straightforward experience
After the initial interview, competitive analysis, and weekly check-ins, I identified 3 priorities:
Key user pain points:
- readers should be able to quickly find Edward's published work
- content should be responsive across devices and easy to read
- Edward should be able to add and update uploaded works independently
IDEATE
Prioritizing usability without sacrificing personality
The main challenge was creating a design that felt personal to Edward without sacrificing familiarity or readability.
I experimented with different approaches and here's what I came up with:
- warm color palettes to create that friendly/familiar feel
- using traditional literary aesthetics to reflect Edward's writing style and reiterate familiarness
- a visual system to find a balance between personality and readability
PROTOTYPE
Refining the experience for Edward and his readers
I translated the design direction into high-fidelity Figma screens and refined the experience around Edward and his audience.
- separated works into clear, scannable sections
- created reusable layouts for future content
- manually transferred the design into WordPress for easy content management
FINAL DESIGN
A responsive portfolio with long-term usability
The final design transformed Edward's scattered works on social media into a cohesive digital archive while preserving his personality:
- clear visual hierarchy that separated written works, personal information, and contact information
- a warm visual identity without sacrificing readability
- built the responsive website in Wordpress and trained Edward so that he could easily update and add content without ongoing support
REFLECTION
Designing for the experience after launch
A few months post-launch, Edward reached out for maintenance support. After some extra training and guidance, he eventually became comfortable managing the site independently.
"Working with Sam is fantastic. She is an extremely skilled designer who understands color and typeface. Importantly, she communicates well with someone who is a non-designer.. Also she listens to your needs and brings you into the process of making a site. I recommend Sam wholeheartedly."
— Dr Edward D. Miller
Impact
- transferred 100% of the client's published work into a personified and user-friendly digital platform
- created an maintainable WordPress site that allowed Edward to update the site on his own
- managed the project independently from client communication through final launch
Key Takeaways
Designing for the author and his readers
This project strengthened my ability to translate stakeholder preferences into design decisions while keeping in mind the audience I'm designing for.
Designing for long-term usability
Building and training Edward on WordPress reinforced maintainability as part of a client's and user's experience.
Balancing client vision with usability
Without formal usability testing, weekly check-ins helped validate the visual direction, communicate design decisions to a non-designer, and reduce unnecessary revisions.
