19 replies to this topic

[dcpweb]

Hi,

I am in the process of re-developing my website over the next few months. I would be grateful for any feedback on the current design.

www.dcpweb.co.uk

Thanks in advance...

I look forward to your constructive comments...

regards

Edited by dcpweb, 11 August 2007 - 06:48 PM.

[albinoAZN]

wow, I love it! The only tip I have is to add some space underneath the keywords at the bottom. Other than that, it's amazing!

[Bug]

Wow... that has to be one of the best flash header's I've been in a LONG time!

It's just so amazing!

[Diaz]

Loving the flash header, I just deteste the load time

Looks sleek and proffesional gj.

[Lastcrime]

this site is amazing, i love all the flash involved, i would really like to do something like this.

[Bug]

Diaz, on Aug 13 2007, 01:39 AM, said:

Loving the flash header, I just deteste the load time

How long did it take you? Mine was like a split second when I first opened the site.

[dcpweb]

Hi,

thanks for your comments, I am now in the process of re-developing the website, will keep you all posted on the next version.





regards

p shah - www.dcpweb.co.uk

Edited by dcpweb, 19 August 2007 - 07:53 PM.

[Pax]

Its pretty good man. Excellent use of the colours. Any reason why you're listing the keywords at the bottom? Some new SEO thing that I dont know about? Do you have an alternate way to navigate if someone doesn't have flash installed? If not, I suggest you use Deconcept's swfObject to embed your .swf. You can target a div and have the flash content overwrite the div when a user visits the site. If they dont have flash (or if its a search engine bot) they will get the non-flash version automatically. Also, the stars next to the items on the left side of your content dont line up with the words.

Edit:

I dont think I was specific enough with what was said about the navigation. I know there is a small nav at the bottom of the page, but that is poor usability. An alternate nav at the top of the page (where main nav usually goes ) would be a good idea.

Edited by Pax, 20 August 2007 - 09:50 AM.

[pirateXcore]

Not bad.
Not as amazing as everyone is making it out to be, but it's still pretty good.
The Flash is okay, I don't really like how the links keep animating over and over so quickly. Drag them out more, and make them repeat less often, or only have them play once each time you hover.
Take out the keywords on the bottom, it looks tacky, and if you do the rest of your content right, you won't need it. (it can get you banned from google if you're caught with it)

Other than that, it looks really clean.
Looking at the websites you've done, you have typos and things (assuming it wasn't the website owners that messed it up)
favorites is not spelled favourits (yes, that is how it's spelled on the sacoma website)

FINALLY, if you're trying to be professional, things like:

Recommendations

This website is best viewed on 1024 x 768 screen resolution

Listed below are the required applications to view this website corectly.
Click here to download Internet Explorer

Click here to download Abobe Acrobat Reader

Should not exist. A website should work in ALL browsers, at ANY resolution, without requiring the user to download extra software.

Out of those 3 showcased sites, I would say Comaps Music is looking the best out of them all, once it's done (it looks like there's more work to do) you will have created a very nice website.

I understand that this is still in development though, hope to see your finished product.

[dcpweb]

Hi,

1. thanks for spotting the typo will be fixed

2. the other works with all browsers ok so this is not a problem, and the website required adobe PDF reader as this is a main feature of viewing the newspaper pages.

thanks

p.s new site is looking better: http://punkbythebook...-beta/index.php

p shah

tgs, on Aug 20 2007, 05:52 PM, said:

Not bad.
Not as amazing as everyone is making it out to be, but it's still pretty good.
The Flash is okay, I don't really like how the links keep animating over and over so quickly. Drag them out more, and make them repeat less often, or only have them play once each time you hover.
Take out the keywords on the bottom, it looks tacky, and if you do the rest of your content right, you won't need it. (it can get you banned from google if you're caught with it)

Other than that, it looks really clean.
Looking at the websites you've done, you have typos and things (assuming it wasn't the website owners that messed it up)
favorites is not spelled favourits (yes, that is how it's spelled on the sacoma website)

FINALLY, if you're trying to be professional, things like:

Recommendations

This website is best viewed on 1024 x 768 screen resolution

Listed below are the required applications to view this website corectly.
Click here to download Internet Explorer

Click here to download Abobe Acrobat Reader

Should not exist. A website should work in ALL browsers, at ANY resolution, without requiring the user to download extra software.

Out of those 3 showcased sites, I would say Comaps Music is looking the best out of them all, once it's done (it looks like there's more work to do) you will have created a very nice website.

I understand that this is still in development though, hope to see your finished product.

[pirateXcore]

An idea and a bugish thing.

First, why I wasn't that impressed with the Flash is that, it doesn't need to be a flash to do what it does, secondly, there's not much animation to it, there's the initial part where everything pops up, but then most of it just sits.
So, for the idea, deer, bears, birds...etc Like walking across the screen in the background, stopping and eating grass..etc

The bug, in FF (not sure about other browsers) the links:


Small Business Solutions view »

Content Management Solutions view »

E-Commerce Solutions view »

Hosting Solution view »

don't all line up with their * image.

That's all for now.

[Pax]

tgs, on Aug 20 2007, 06:10 PM, said:

An idea and a bugish thing.

First, why I wasn't that impressed with the Flash is that, it doesn't need to be a flash to do what it does, secondly, there's not much animation to it, there's the initial part where everything pops up, but then most of it just sits.
So, for the idea, deer, bears, birds...etc Like walking across the screen in the background, stopping and eating grass..etc

The bug, in FF (not sure about other browsers) the links:


Small Business Solutions view »

Content Management Solutions view »

E-Commerce Solutions view »

Hosting Solution view »

don't all line up with their * image.

That's all for now.

IMO, its a bad idea to try and create a reason to use Flash. If you are doing that, you're just going to wreck the Flash piece. Contrary to the belief of the masses, Flash is not a huge evil anti-standards beast. If you want to use it, then go ahead and use it, but use it well! Provide alternate content for those without Javascript/Flash (Javascript because thats what you should be using to embed the Flash Object). Set your Flash up so it can work with the back buttons and can be properly indexed by search engines (yes it is all possible).

The primary purpose for Flash is to provide a rich and interactive user experience.

[pirateXcore]

Well, beyond opinions, the facts are that not everyone has Flash, and only people who use text based browsers don't have images. If your Flash document just does things that can be done with an animated gif (without causing hassle/running poorly) then there's no reason to use Flash.
Imagine going to that site looking for some one to design a website for you, and you see a big empty box at the top of the screen. I guarantee you wouldn't use that site.
So, as I was saying before, if you aren't going to be doing something that shows off the power of Flash, then there's no reason to use Flash.

So I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact, I would say Flash is by far one of the greatest tools given to web developers. But it's purpose is to go beyond what you can normally do, and that's what it should be used for.

[Bug]

tgs, on Aug 22 2007, 03:30 AM, said:

Well, beyond opinions, the facts are that not everyone has Flash, and only people who use text based browsers don't have images.

I would have agreed with you, but it's funny what digg.com draws up lol

I found a rather interesting article, it showed the percentage of how many internet-enabled PC's used flash.

Quote

Currently Adobe Flash Player is said to have 98.7% penetration in the Web, making it the most used media player:

Source: Adobe; Millward Brown survey, conducted March 2007

I got that from http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe...iestar_h264.php , if you wanted to take a closer look into it

[Pax]

Bug, on Aug 21 2007, 06:28 PM, said:

tgs, on Aug 22 2007, 03:30 AM, said:

Well, beyond opinions, the facts are that not everyone has Flash, and only people who use text based browsers don't have images.

I would have agreed with you, but it's funny what digg.com draws up lol

I found a rather interesting article, it showed the percentage of how many internet-enabled PC's used flash.

While those stats are true, they are a bit misleading. They would include very old versions of Flash which won't run the majority of new Flash content. Flash Player 9 (formerly 8.5) is sitting somewhere between 89% and 92% Market penetration, which is pretty good considering it hasn't been around all too long.

[pirateXcore]

Wow, that's a little surprising. But this is based off of PC users.
Which excludes non-flash/imagless phones and mac users (i assume mac users have similar stats though)
I've found a growing number of people viewing my sites from their phones, and I only know, personally, two people that don't have text browsers on their phone.
But those numbers are changing as well, and more and more phones are using flash.

This does not change my stance that Flash should only be used if you're using it to its full potential and/or doing something you can't do/can't do as easily without Flash & Actionscript.
peace

Edit: back towards where this topic is supposed to be, nice to see that one typo fixed... XD
A nice addition might be to use AJAX for the content rather than loading the pages every time?

Edited by tgs, 21 August 2007 - 10:23 PM.

[Pax]

tgs, on Aug 21 2007, 11:19 PM, said:

Wow, that's a little surprising. But this is based off of PC users.
Which excludes non-flash/imagless phones and mac users (i assume mac users have similar stats though)
I've found a growing number of people viewing my sites from their phones, and I only know, personally, two people that don't have text browsers on their phone.
But those numbers are changing as well, and more and more phones are using flash.

This does not change my stance that Flash should only be used if you're using it to its full potential and/or doing something you can't do/can't do as easily without Flash & Actionscript.
peace

Edit: back towards where this topic is supposed to be, nice to see that one typo fixed... XD
A nice addition might be to use AJAX for the content rather than loading the pages every time?

On Topic: Ajax content offers a number of the same limitations that Flash does This is compounded if the developer doesn't do a good job of the Ajax coding. But, you are right, it would be sweet on the site

Off Topic: Mac's ship with Flash Player installed.

[Bug]

Pax, on Aug 23 2007, 03:08 AM, said:

Off Topic: Mac's ship with Flash Player installed.

As they should lol Adobe is Mac-based

[pirateXcore]

Pax, on Aug 22 2007, 10:08 AM, said:

On Topic: Ajax content offers a number of the same limitations that Flash does This is compounded if the developer doesn't do a good job of the Ajax coding. But, you are right, it would be sweet on the site

Off Topic: Mac's ship with Flash Player installed.

Yea, I know. But I figure - if you're going to use one, why not use the other? Especially considering that most browsers support Javascript without any plugins or such. The only ones you'd have to worry about, again, are some phones (not sure how many have JS enabled browsers)

That's good to know.

[dcpweb]

Hi,

thanks for your comments, will keep these in mind on the re-development,









regards

p shah - www.dcpweb.co.uk

Edited by dcpweb, 23 August 2007 - 02:27 PM.