Building a personal website for the first time or feeling stuck on how to fill in content? This post shares ways to use the MIT Commkit archives to build your website!
Source: Slightly modified from https://github.com/alshedivat/al-folio
Personal websites can serve as engaging resumes, helpful research documentation, personal blogs, and many other possible functions. A website might combine all these elements or focus heavily on one objective. For example, if you are looking for an internship your website might have a heavy focus on CV-type material. Or, if you are a graduate student or postdoc applying to faculty positions your website might emphasis your academic achievements, publications, and personal research philosophy and story.
I’ve been thinking a lot about these different uses of a personal website as I’ve been working to create my own while also mentoring a first year UROP as she creates hers. She and I have very different goals and potential audiences for our websites, however, in my opinion, whatever the communication goal of your website, the techniques for creating an effective website are shared amongst all types. Further, I think that good techniques for website design and content creation are shared with those of good presentations, reports, and especially figure design.
This blog was born from my crisis of having created perhaps 3 or 4 websites over the years, each time never getting much further than designing a home page before feeling stuck and eventually abandoning the project. In this blog I’ll explore the ways we can draw on the Comm Lab resources to come up with and create effective content for our personal websites.
This blog is broken into a couple sections that explore technique for different website elements.
Home page
Draw on good abstract and figure design
Use abstract and graphical abstract design skills when crafting your home page. Source: Graphical abstract from Wiki commons
Your audience first lands on your website’s home page and decides how (and if) to engage with your site from there. In designing a home page, we can ask: what is the first thing that people “see” in other pieces of communication and how do they draw the reader in? In a research paper, I always look at the abstract and figures first (see this interesting article in Science that interviews many academics to see what they look at first in papers – a common answer is introduction, conclusion, and figures).
When scanning through the depths of Google Scholar, reading an abstract is nice because they are written to be succinct and punchy; abstracts boil down a research work to its core story. See David Larson‘s CommKit on abstract writing. This makes me consider including a sort of “website abstract” on my home page. This abstract might present who I am, my research area and projects, the goal of my website, what it contains. It could contain more or less than this depending on the website type and content. The main goal of a “website abstract” is to capture the story your website tells about you, your work, and your goals.
Next, use images and figures on a home page. In a paper or on a poster, figures help you, very quickly, recognize if a paper is applicable to you, the type of results presented in the work (modeling vs. experiment vs. theoretical), and so much more. Since your website might capture a plethora of projects and even disciplines, create a graphical abstract for your home page that captures the breadth of your research projects/work (see Charlie Hirst’s CommKit on abstracts for discussion of a graphical abstract). The same principles that apply to good figure design apply to a graphical abstract. Depending on the quantity and diversity of content in your site you might include multiple graphical abstracts with corresponding captions and links to specific sections of your website.
Showcasing projects
Draw on good poster design
Use research poster design skills when crafting project pages. Source: Poster presentation photo from Wiki commons
Start with Victor Prost’s poster design CommKit for showcasing a research project on your website. A research poster is significantly less written material than a paper and combines brief, effective text with eye-catching figures to draw conference participates in and communicate the project’s motivation and what you achieved. Project pages can function in the exact same fashion. Rather than including just text or just images, combine them effectively to show the story. This is especially important if you imagine your website audience is a recruiter or potential employer with limited time.
Research/Professional goals
Draw on good cover letter writing
Use cover letter writing techniques when crafting your research, career, or personal website statement. Source: Cover letter outline from Julia Rubin’s CommKit article
Finally, perhaps you’d like your site to include a tab about your research philosophy, professional goals, or something similar: look to techniques for good cover letter writing. Cover letters explore both what you’ve done and, significantly, where you’d like to go. While much of your website will emphasize what you have done so far, this page is where someone will find what you’d like to go next and where you see your niche/specific contribution to the field or industry. If you’re pursuing academic positions, I suggest Julia Rubin‘s CommKit article on cover letters for faculty applications. Alternatively, perhaps Yamini Krishnan‘s Commkit article on cover letters for internships and jobs is more applicable. Usually, cover letters are written to specific companies or reviewers. However, in the case of a website you’ll want to generalize your philosophy/goal statement to fit any audience.
I hope these curated resources and examples can help whether you’ve just starting your website or if (like me) you’ve felt stuck on how to proceed after getting all the basics down.
For some inspiration check out these entries from the MechE Undergraduate Design Portfolio Contest from BU.