What Would Johny Do?
UX Design Portfolio || evaluation
I have followed Johny Vino for some time and am always fascinated by his work. I am delighted to see updates to his portfolio, which he has made recently. As I begin projects of my own, I find myself digging through Johny’s rich body of work for inspiration.
Though he is prolific in several roles, I am most impressed by Johny’s endless exploration as an Interaction Designer. He offers a set of artifacts from experiments over the span of 2+ years. Present in this collection is an insight into his process: “(Come) up with as many ideas as possible, then test with the user, find 2–3 best working prototype, then pick one and iterate.”
“I am not a lover of my first design. Over years, I prepared my heart to accept strong critics.”
One of his articles I discovered early on tracks his process of creating Bloom, an interactive model that aims to alleviate anxiety in children by giving them a visual representation of their breathing.
The case study for Bloom dives deep into his process, a consistent feature of his articles in general. Here he employs a lean UX framework relying on empathy to understand his target user — children of educated parents. One finding that eventually informs his prototype is that “kids are very particular about the things in their room. They relish observing the moving objects.” The result is a product that tests mostly effective and easy to use.
From a website design perspective, his portfolio is a pleasure to navigate through. I find myself dipping into his code to discover what tools he is using to animate some of the movement. Though there is an impressive amount of work, the layout is simple — repeating full-width full-height splash images with a “jumbotron” and call to action inviting users to read a case study. It is noteworthy that his call to actions remain in the same location, but with variations on the text. One asks users to “read the case study,” while another invites to “check the experiments.”
Johny’s work will continue to be an aspiration. Altogether, his portfolio represents his values and is a balance of interesting commercial projects and moving passion projects.
This is an evaluation of a portfolio for a User Experience Design Immersive course at General Assembly
