Flash Site Design - New Flash site

Author

New Flash site

Simplepop

2006-04-17, 6:33 pm

Aswell as a mypsace page, ive also decided to do a blog page, let me know if there are any problmes with this, also critques or advice would be really aprriciated!

Thanks

alanwallace4

2006-04-17, 6:33 pm

Hi,
Have you got a link...
Cheers
Alan

Simplepop

2006-04-17, 6:33 pm

http://simplepop.blogspot.com/

That was pretty stupid....anyways..opions anyone? also anyone know of a good
place to get an easy to manage and adjust Shout box like the one im using?
would be aprricated!

Simplepop

2006-04-18, 6:38 pm

.....erm comments? would like to know what people think of this...

thanks!

rhett121

2006-04-21, 6:41 pm

It's big and clunky and extremely slow.
The primary page is too tall and thus induces a scroll bar on the browser,
but using this scroll bar is slow AND it doesn't even scroll the content. For
content scrolling there is yet another set of scroll bars (which aren't as
easily identified) and my biggest complaint with Flash scrollers is that they
aren't controllable with a scroll wheel, so the user is forced to click and
drag, which isn't very pleasant on text heavy sites such as a blog.
It shows some real promise though. I would look at it long and hard from a
usability standpoint and try to find ways to cut down on the file download
size. I have a VERY fast internet connection and this is the slowest loading
site I've been to in years. The transitions are eating you alive!
When you are designing for Flash sites you are allowed to think
differently... for instance, if all of your content is in individual scrollable
containers, and it doesn't matter where they are, why would you design for a
vertical format when monitors are all horizontal? Rule number one in web
design, keep it above the line. Meaning that about 90% of web users will not
scroll your page to see what's under the visual monitor line. Keep your most
important information up here. You could reconfigure that layout to utilize
screen real-estate more efficiently instead of the large empty space on the
left and important content under the visual line.
Nice job though, you have some talents no doubt, I'm just critiquing this
page. Good Luck!

Christoph Varjas

2006-04-23, 3:34 am

Theres no trouble loading the page because it is not a large swf file, the
problem is that it takes way too long for any content to come up. Sure its
cool to have everything tween in one after another but its a little ridiculous.
I was about to just exit the browser when your blog finally animated into
place. The drop down menus on the side take far too long to move as well. No
one in today's world has time to wait for anything and a few seconds spent
watching a website move is not acceptable.

You can keep all the animated parts but make them all happen a lot more
quickly. And as rhett121 said that the page should not be taller than a
monitor's dimensions because scrollbars are not worth it, especially the click
and drag bars in flash.

This is just a critique because you asked for suggestions and without those
problems the site is well composed and looks good. But why not make use of the
empty space showing the background and widen your flash blog so that you do not
need scrollbars? Any updates and just post again for comments.

Simplepop

2006-04-23, 6:47 pm

Thanks for the crituque and to be perfectly honest, its exactly how i was
expecting it to be, apart from some of the stuff said by rhett121 who must have
a very under date computer. since he streesed at how bad the transitions where.
also the thing with the load time on each swf. i was trying a new system for
loading up layer. where the whole site is made up of 5 swf files each at around
50 kb. 50kb these days is quite a standard amount to not need a preloader. alot
of flas banners are around 50 kb so there wasnt much problem in not needing a
preloader. but to say this is one of the slowest sites hes been on in years, is
a bit silly and i completly disagree. 250kb is not that much to load up on a
higher end connection, but on low end connections. i agree it is. this site was
not aimed at anyone with little time on there hands, it is infact a blog site.
people with little time on there hands wouldnt be reading blog sites. This site
was more of something for me to play wiht flash 8 and expieriment. it is not a
client site. so i had the freedom to do what i wanted how i wanted. but also i
wanted to find out how it stresses on other peoples machines.

The main thing im confused about is rhett121 comments alot of it doesnt make
sense. like the connection speed. there couldnt be antying else causing the
swf's to load apart from his processor being to weak?

Also. with the above the line comment, computers are very varied these days
and the above the line point is very limiting. for sites that need it i do keep
to above the line. but also some people like sites wich scroll. theres nothing
wrong with thinking outside the box. infact i prefer to think outside the box.
no one wants what everyone else has, people like change to some extent. this
one was for me and im happy with it. theres nothign wrong with that....

but i am happy. i did hear what i was hoping to hear. this site isnt on my
portfolio for that reason.... thanks for your critisicm...

rhett121

2006-04-24, 3:49 am

Hey there simplepop, I didn't mean to sound to derogatory but it did "seem"
very slow. Looking at it now I see it could be the transitions loading that
were making it seem to crawl. I was trying to scroll the main window because I
couldn't find the content and the transitions were still loading so it made my
browser stutter.
I am currently on a Powerbook 1.5Ghz with 2GB ram and 64MB video ram running
OSX.4.5 on a 5.1Mbs download/1.3Mbs upload connection so I don't think it was
my computer. Maybe I was being a little impatient but it really did seem to
take quite a long time to finish (actually I just timed it, it took 26-32
seconds to completely load out of 3 attempts). There were a couple of times I
wondered if it was finished loading but then something else would happen. It
still seems to stutter when scrolling the entire page but who knows what that
is.
Your comments about the "above the line" are valid, there are plenty of times
you can't avoid it but in this instance you "can" avoid it. Whether you should
or not is up to you but I can tell you that usability-wise, end users don't
appreciate it as much. On my screen the page gets cut off at "Details" on the
sidebar (screen res 1280x854px). Everything else is below the line.
One thing that would actually make this REALLY step up is if you loaded the
transition from the TOP down (and speed them up a little) this would give the
end user more immediate feedback AND give them a visual cue to scroll down
below the line. Actually, now that I think about it, that would work out very
well.

Also, the scroll bar handle on the upper container is too big, it might look
more balanced if it were shorter (like the other one). Oh and Mexican cheese is
really really good, except they obviously call it queso.

Simplepop

2006-04-24, 6:35 pm

hmm i just timed it myself, im on a dell inspiron 9300 2 gig processor and 1
gig ram, so your mac is alot better than mine and your connection is faster. so
there cant be any reason for it to take so long for it to load up....it took me
8.8 seconds to load fully.

And still as this is only a personal project its not to important getting it
right, but also knowing me. im never content with what i make, i get bored
easily, which i see as a good things since it always gives me plenty of
opurtunity to learn. so ill end up making another site, and then testing it
here for crtique soon enough im sure.

as for the scroll bars. hmmm if you read my first comment in my blog the chat
box system i was using i spent all day on and at the end of it something was a
miss, if youve ever spent all day on something all for nothing youll know how
fustrating it is and just want to get a project over....this project was one of
them kinda moods so....meh, the text scrool box which contains the blog is also
a quick donwload and plug in and yet i couldnt really be botherd to make to
many changes. its the kind of scroller where the more content the smaller the
bar gets where as the other bos is the more content the more sensitve the bar
becomes to movement of the content....sorry for bad....er...wording of all this
but my eyes hurt and im actually well tired! oh well...days work ahead of me....

thanks for the comments