Skypes Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Would appreciate some feedback from a user perspective. (1) Useful? (Yes/No) (2) Any technical issues? (3) What could be added to improve/retain visitors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILMV Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Right first thing is first, DO NOT USE FLASH!!! Do not use flash as the only entrance to your site, all I see is a big white page because my rig doesn't have flash, lots of other people don't have flash, some have flash blockers, some anti virus's block flash, some people also browse through on a mobile device, without flash (iPhone) etc etc etc... If your going to use it (which I do not recommend) at least put a link at the bottom "Skip into" To me a flash entrance is not appealing, it adds to the '5 second rule' whereby the user wants to get to the content within 5 seconds. I will comment further when I am on another machine... ILMV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcombs_31 Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 While I don't necessarily agree with half the things said above, your use of flash is terrible. There is no need for THIS page to be in flash. You are not utilizing anything that would require flash, even your header can be done with a few lines of javascript. Usability aside, the theme/design doesn't fit. The bubble glossy look just doesn't do it for me. Is that bookmark button really supposed to bookmark the site for me? For one, it doesn't work, second, it is useless. The scrolling news page is annoying, what's the point? The main page doesn't have anything useful at all or say anything about the site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adx Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 For one, it doesn't work, second, it is useless. That's a bit redundant, but I agree completely as most people aren't so inept that they can't find and hit control+D. The whole bubble effect is kind of disturbing, and I can't seem to scroll down as long as that flash banner is active, which is all the time. I realize you're probably not finished with it yet, but you should at least write something, anything. It makes me want to stay home! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gighalen Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 It looks pretty cool, but when you click on the Flash object (Ex. The dropdown list), you cant use your mouse wheel to scrool up/down :\ You have to click on the white to the right first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 (1) Useful? (Yes/No) (2) Any technical issues? (3) What could be added to improve/retain visitors? 1) Not very... Where is the description of what this site does?.. I am confused by the three dropdown menus on the right-hand side (nothing labeling what they are), a large film strip with nothing in it and refernce field (for what, I cannot say).. overall, it needs more labels / descriptions. As it is, I find it rather confusing. 2) Feels sluggish when examining the dropdown menu as well as simply scrolling up and down the page. 3) Well, again, giving the site some more descriptive purpose for starters.. I have problems understanding what it is I am looking at. My opinion about flash is pretty much in line with ILMV's (I do support flash, but in extremely small non-intrusive doese). Overall, flash is over rated IMO. And from I have read, web visitors in general grow tired of it once the novelty wears off. If not used in small and careful doses, the reactions from people can get ugly in a hurry. As for the banner image loader, I think as jcombs mentioned, it can be done with javascript (and I'm not sure you need to alternate between so many images.. save some bandwidth, and reduce this (if not eliminate this altogether)). The performance of the site feels sluggish. I'm not sure if it is the flash doing it or not.. but I would look into making things far more responsive. According to Yahoo Yslow's analysis, your 1 Flash Object is 293.7K alone. I would look into streamlining this and making it more lightweight. I always wonder about clocks built into sites.. If I want the time, I can simply look at the bottom of my screen for that. I would consider axing the clock altogether. Looks pretty, but it not useful whatsoever. As mentioned by others as well, the glassy theme doesn't work I don't think.. (not in this case anyways). Overall, I think between all of these issues, the site is confusing and not a pleasure to work with IMO (sorry, not trying to sound mean or anything). If you can eliminate the flash and clock, ditch the bubble look, reduce the amount of images that alternate, and make things more functionally descriptive, you stand to improve it alot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILMV Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 I have finally managed to view this with flash enabled. I hate it, I am really keen on making a website accessible to all, and using flash in this manner goes against all of I am also very keen on keeping the components (buttons etc) as in keeping with their environment as possible. This means the buttons, select boxes etc act and feel like those used by the operating system. Because for a basic user, a unfamiliar component can throw them right off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petersro Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Greetings, I viewed your site on my rig, using firefox 3 @ a screen of 1440*900, and i agree with the others the flash doesnt work for you. however, its not a bad job. A coupple of technical details, the drop down lists need to be configured correctly, i had to guess wich drop down list to select to get the others to work, a Please select country and so on, would not go a miss, i suggest a re-think on the layout, and delivery medium, plus a possable mashup with google maps, to show where said business is. Good Luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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