Flash site critique requested

"cruiserweight" <bayon86 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> a écrit dans le message de news:
1106533186.954870.121410 (AT) c13g20...oglegroups.com...

Thanks for everyone's input. It is much appreciated. For flash that
doesn't suck, check out http://www.group94.com, who produced
http://www.carldekeyzer.com, a very good photographer's web site. The
swf file is only 36k. The photos, of course, are the same size flash or
no flash. As well, I can appreciate the "loose the flash" arguement,
except that's what the guy wanted, so that's what he got.

That is a very good example of Flash, thanks for sharing and good luck with
your project.

"cruiserweight" <bayon86 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

I'm wrapping this flash site up for a photographer and would like to
get some overall feedback on usabilty, design and so on while there is
still time to make changes. If this is not the right group for flash
stuff, please advise. Any and all ideas are appreciated. Thanks in
advance.

The "timeline" section will be exactly like the "titles" section, only
stories will be sorted by date, not name. But this section is yet to be
finished.

Aside from Flash being annoying which is covered by other posters, there's
one little thing that to me doesn't look good:
That scrolling (or whatever the word for unwinding like that is) text, looks
like it's being fed out of a database. Otherwise, there would be no reason
to chop at the end in the middle of a word and then tack on some periods.
If you're doing that, why not crunch the text a little, like:
1. take the first x number of characters.
2. reverse it
3. chop it off at the first space
4. reverse it again.

That gives you an ending at the end of a word. Then, just add the ellipse
and you're lookin good.

If this isn't live out of some database, I've wasted words. You should just
cut it at the end of a word instead of in the middle..

Actually a nice looking Flash page, but unnecessary. Hate to give
Macromedia all that dough and then not use the program, eh?

"cruiserweight" <bayon86 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Thanks for everyone's input. It is much appreciated. For flash that
doesn't suck, check out http://www.group94.com, who produced
http://www.carldekeyzer.com, a very good photographer's web site.

Guess that's why the make chocolate and vanilla.. Both of these look extra
sucky to my old eyes..
Fortunately, I stopped looking at it before I had a seizure.

kchayka wrote:

cruiserweight wrote:

For flash that
doesn't suck, check out http://www.group94.com,


Text size is microscopic, as are most Flash sites. If it were plain old
HTML, I could do something about that, but alas not with Flash. The site
is unusable.


who produced
http://www.carldekeyzer.com, a very good photographer's web site.


Not only is the text size unreadably small, but there is also
insufficient contrast with the background color, so they made it even
harder to read.

You can zoom a Flash movie just the same as an HTML page.

I loathe Flash, but I loathe deezyners even more. :-(

Which makes your opinion worthless in MY opinion. Everything has to be
designed. HTML code monkeys are pointless without design.

I can appreciate the "loose the flash" arguement,
except that's what the guy wanted, so that's what he got.


Where web design is concerned, the customer isn't always right.

And a techie is almost never right.


--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #

Clever. Definitelyy an idea worth using.

I'm still not finished. There are many things that I am still not
satisfied with. But I wanted to get some brutally honest feedback and I
knew I could find it here, for better or worse.

The text does live in a database, but the swf file reads a txt file
created from the "publishing system" instead of actually reading from
the db everytime. I find it's faster and utilizes the browser's cache
more effectively.

I guess some folks will always hate Flash simply on principle. And
that's ok. But many strike me as the kind of people that would complain
about the Mona Lisa. There is more to design that usability...

Perhaps you would like to share some sites that you think are dynamite?

I would find it difficult to argue with what you say. But despite
too-small text, I thought the thing -- gracefully and transparently to
me, but then i made it -- provided three entry points to 71 stories and
over 2000 photos spanning four decades of work. With only two clicks
you are looking at full size images.

And, afterall, that is what this site is suppose to be: a research
tool. With minimal effort, we can see the latest stuff this guy is
working on, and if necessary, with a click or two we can see stories
sorted by country or date, choose and then See The Photos.

Afterall, the guy is a photographer. Just read his copy and you can see
quite quickly few are paying him to write in English...

As always, thanks for everyones input. Especially the guy that railed
about cutting mid-word. I hope to have an XHTML thing shortly so
everyone can take a proper ax to that. Best.