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I've got a portal to design in the next year. Should we be inspired by things like this? Are flash homepages passe? Could this be a skin for certain sectors of audience, with something more standard and conservative for others?
Any comments appreciated.
Friday, April 20, 2007
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About Me
- Nick
- husband, son, brother, uncle, friend, musician, cat person, chicken-keeper, gamer, geek.
6 comments:
I looked at this page - but I found it a bit difficult to use...maybe it's my age!!!!! I'm sure that with your talents you'll deseign something magnificent!!!
That interface is not unusable.
I went to click on one of the images, and it suddenly ballooned in size and dissappeared off to the other side of the screen. In order to reach it, I had to delicately move my mouse in a straight horizontal line (easier said than done when using a trackpad). If I moved out of the "mouse over" boundary the images started wizzing about again.
Having small things to click is annoying, having them also move about in an unexpected manner is taking the piss out of me as a user.
If you ever design something like this, I'm afraid I'll have to stop speaking to you!
BTW, before you design any kind of a UI, read this book. Then read it again. Don't make me think, it's simple premise, but should be a golden rule.
I look forward to his follow up: "Don't make me chase tiny icons around the screen with my trackpad"!
Hi Nick
Whilst I quite like this (with certain reservations), I'm looking at it from a design point of view rather than a useability one - perhaps good for something like a portfolio section a of design agency site etc where the design and programming skills are the key thing over and above some of the normal accessability considerations. I'm also viewing on a large screen - may be more frustrating if I was using our laptop. I guess it depends on who the end user will be.
thanks guys...
Agreed with all points above, and I know it certainly wouldn't be something which suited everyone.
Maybe the question is: do you think flash sites of this ilk can be equally usable and engaging / immersive etc? Have you seen any?
There is not as much flash as the site you link to but try Maverick Records.
http://www.maverick.com/
I really like this site.
Personally, I think less is definitely more when it comes to Flash and websites. If you want to create slick UIs, think about using AJAX instead. Just make sure users can *always* link to the content they're looking at (which Flash often doesn't let them do just because of the way it's been developed) and bear in mind that both Flash and AJAX websites can be difficult to optimize for search engines (if that's a consideration for you). Easy-to-use websites impress people more than flashy graphics that come with confusing navigation systems.
Having said that, I think that Flash sites can be usable if they're thoughtfully designed with the average user in mind. I'll try to dig some URLs out tomorrow if I remember.
Incidentally, this site is a totally different way of thinking if you've never seen it (although it seems to be down right now, so you may need to try another time):
dontclick.it
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