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Whats' up with that? Why must all these freaking 'web design' (I use the term loosely in this context) agencies put a 200k Flash movie on thier "splash" page? Man, that's not a splash page, it's a freakin' tidal wave. A goddamn modem drowning whoosh of binary swamping my 56k modem with useless pap, when all I want to do is get to the innards of your site and learn about what you can do for me.
Skip intro! The very existence of the skip intro button belittles the Flash movie that it is encased in! The 'Skip Intro' button acknowledges the fact that what the user is seeing is worthless. If it were otherwise, why on earth would the user want to skip it!
If you are making web sites, do me a favour, stop putting tacky flash movies at the start that I don't need to look at. And if you do a splash page, make sure it is a splash, not a friggen' ocean of code.
Oh. And whilst I'm at it. The Internet lets me pick the bits I want to read without having to click "Next" or "More", I should be presented with a coherent menu system which lets me navigate directly to the bit I want to read.
Read a Human Computer Interface book for crying out loud!
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Whats' up with that? Why must all these freaking 'web design' (I use the term loosely in this context) agencies put a 200k Flash movie on thier "splash" page? Man, that's not a splash page, it's a freakin' tidal wave. A goddamn modem drowning whoosh of binary swamping my 56k modem with useless pap, when all I want to do is get to the innards of your site and learn about what you can do for me.
Skip intro! The very existence of the skip intro button belittles the Flash movie that it is encased in! The 'Skip Intro' button acknowledges the fact that what the user is seeing is worthless. If it were otherwise, why on earth would the user want to skip it!
If you are making web sites, do me a favour, stop putting tacky flash movies at the start that I don't need to look at. And if you do a splash page, make sure it is a splash, not a friggen' ocean of code.
Oh. And whilst I'm at it. The Internet lets me pick the bits I want to read without having to click "Next" or "More", I should be presented with a coherent menu system which lets me navigate directly to the bit I want to read.
Read a Human Computer Interface book for crying out loud!
At last... another fellow believer... I too loath "Skip Intro" and "Splashy Flashy". I've never understood why people spend hours building these huge code eating monstrosities. Why put all that functionality in to a page that actually serves no function at all apart from annoying the user after the 3rd time of seeing it?
They could spend time actually developing some real "functionality" instead of some over hyped animated pap that tends to reveal a totally cr@p site...
I've always had the same veiw of Jakob Neilsen, "Flash is 98% Bad" (Title of his study). It will have it's day, but not untill BroadBand becomes the "norm". As the man said, Flash is ideal for BB, TV and Multimedia CD's and DVD's, but with the current average modem speed being only 56k (actually 42.6k), Flash is "Evil"...
There are some good examples out there, but they have been designed with a purpose and not as one of these badly produced splash screens where the designer has failed to use a basic tool such as the Streaming Profiler... And has anyone ever tried bookmarking a page in a flash built site? Let alone trying to use the back button! (You should never remove the functionality of the browser!!)
As for the Next/More point you made... I have two veiws on this, but they come from building massive sites with huge ammounts of online content...
Direct linking to stuff should always be the proper way of doing things, but whan you putting a fulltext document online that contains over 1 million characters, it's much esier to abstract it and give the user the option to proceed with "More"
The same with "News", you want to get the point accross quickly, but want to reduce the ammount of space and text you bombard the user with. As well as linking the titles to it's real location, some users, especially the older ones (you should try working with academics and authors!) recognise the "More" option more readily that actual llinking.
As for "Next"... I'm guilty of using this, but in a proper context, normally when presenting designs online... I'll have a main default page with the Menu options of each design but along with this, I will include a "Back/Next" option under each page to make compariosons quicker. Other wise, THERE SHOULD BE NO USE FOR "NEXT"!!
Again, these are the things that a lot of "long term" web people have learned over the years, and I spend a lot of time studying the behaviour and interaction patterns of our users so that we, on a whole, can deliver a much better and usable service. Something which a lot of these young up-starts hae yet to understand and learn for themselves.
All of these mistakes where made years ago buy "our" predecessors, and now our successors are making the same mistakes because they all think they know better...
Any one going into Web Design SHOULD read Human Computer Interaction! As well as understanding basic things such as Colour Psychology, Basic Design Principles, "The Golden Mean" (1:1.618)and Asthetic Form... Everything I learned from being a Graphic Designer. Just because you can "Code", and I use the term lightly, in HTML, JavaScript or whatever, doesn't make you a designer...
***Runs to hide under desk from fall out***
YOU DON'T LIKE FLASH INTROS!? weirdos.
they're great, skip intros are good, as you said, you can skip it if it's too long and you don't want to see it again.
Some of them are nice, some site are better for them, some are horrible and too long with nothing on them, but it makes a difference, a little bit of music and moving images.
they're great, skip intros are good, as you said, you can skip it if it's too long and you don't want to see it again.
Some of them are nice, some site are better for them, some are horrible and too long with nothing on them, but it makes a difference, a little bit of music and moving images.
Fogmaster wrote:
> YOU DON'T LIKE FLASH INTROS!? weirdos.
A user study performed by Leading Internet Research Company, Forrester showed that 86% of users hated Flash Intros... and that 70% of design agencies now try to put off clients from using them...
> YOU DON'T LIKE FLASH INTROS!? weirdos.
A user study performed by Leading Internet Research Company, Forrester showed that 86% of users hated Flash Intros... and that 70% of design agencies now try to put off clients from using them...
No arguments from me about the flash, an intro is usually the fastest way to make me leave a site but anyway...
Tyla wrote:
> Again, these are the things that a lot of
> "long term" web people have learned over the years, and I spend a lot
> of time studying the behaviour and interaction patterns of our users so that we,
> on a whole, can deliver a much better and usable service. Something which a lot
> of these young up-starts hae yet to understand and learn for themselves.
> All
> of these mistakes where made years ago buy "our" predecessors, and now
> our successors are making the same mistakes because they all think they know
> better...
My first reaction is to say, get off your high horse. :)
Do they think they know better? Thats rather a big generalisation. Feel free to provide a few examples of these people who think they know better.
> Any one going into Web Design SHOULD read Human
> Computer Interaction! As well as understanding basic things such as Colour
> Psychology, Basic Design Principles, "The Golden Mean" (1:1.618)and
> Asthetic Form... Everything I learned from being a Graphic Designer. Just
> because you can "Code", and I use the term lightly, in HTML,
> JavaScript or whatever, doesn't make you a designer...
I could read books on all those topics (in fact I have read some) and still it wouldn't make me a good designer. I could also speculate that many of the principles that these books/studies state are things best learnt by doing, not by reading a book/paper on them. :)
I'm always very dubious of people who start babbling about "Basic Design Principles" and "Asthetic Form", sometimes you're left with the feeling that all they really want to say is do things my way, I know best. Not the case here I'm sure. :)
-G
Tyla wrote:
> Again, these are the things that a lot of
> "long term" web people have learned over the years, and I spend a lot
> of time studying the behaviour and interaction patterns of our users so that we,
> on a whole, can deliver a much better and usable service. Something which a lot
> of these young up-starts hae yet to understand and learn for themselves.
> All
> of these mistakes where made years ago buy "our" predecessors, and now
> our successors are making the same mistakes because they all think they know
> better...
My first reaction is to say, get off your high horse. :)
Do they think they know better? Thats rather a big generalisation. Feel free to provide a few examples of these people who think they know better.
> Any one going into Web Design SHOULD read Human
> Computer Interaction! As well as understanding basic things such as Colour
> Psychology, Basic Design Principles, "The Golden Mean" (1:1.618)and
> Asthetic Form... Everything I learned from being a Graphic Designer. Just
> because you can "Code", and I use the term lightly, in HTML,
> JavaScript or whatever, doesn't make you a designer...
I could read books on all those topics (in fact I have read some) and still it wouldn't make me a good designer. I could also speculate that many of the principles that these books/studies state are things best learnt by doing, not by reading a book/paper on them. :)
I'm always very dubious of people who start babbling about "Basic Design Principles" and "Asthetic Form", sometimes you're left with the feeling that all they really want to say is do things my way, I know best. Not the case here I'm sure. :)
-G
Garin wrote:
> My first reaction is to say, get off your high
> horse. :)
Not on a high horse, but looking back from experience from designing work for multi million pound companies in various forms...
>Do they think they know better? Thats rather a big >generalisation. Feel free to provide a few examples of >these people who think they know better.
History has already proven this, look at the .com bust, boo.com etc... The industry is dead at the moment, I should know, I've been looking for work in it now for over a year and there isn't anything out there. This is because past agencies, a mojority of which who have now closed, got it wrong by selling stuff that was full of bells and whistles but no real functionality...
Read Jeffery Veen, Jakob Neilsen etc, all is explained there. Current trends have gone "Retro" and more focused on Content and functionality as well as low cost...
I will return with some names of faliures and successes...
>I could read books on all those topics (in fact I have read some) and still it wouldn't make me a good designer. I could also speculate that many of the principles that these books/studies state are things best learnt by doing, not by reading a book/paper on them. :)
True, design is about creativity but not all people are creative visually. Any one can draw, but not everyone can communicate and image, identity or message vusually.
All these books are about "theory" basic principles which have been around and proven since the dawn of the rennaisance. I've sepnt years working in advertising, design and typography and learn't that these principles are true and needed...
>I'm always very dubious of people who start babbling about "Basic Design Principles" and "Asthetic Form", sometimes you're left with the feeling that all they really want to say is do things my way, I know best. Not the case here I'm sure. :)
Again, it's theory and principles, and Graphic Designer knows about them. The reason i quit Art College was due to being told how to do things instead of developing my own style, but the principles are still the same in any form of graphical communication...
> My first reaction is to say, get off your high
> horse. :)
Not on a high horse, but looking back from experience from designing work for multi million pound companies in various forms...
>Do they think they know better? Thats rather a big >generalisation. Feel free to provide a few examples of >these people who think they know better.
History has already proven this, look at the .com bust, boo.com etc... The industry is dead at the moment, I should know, I've been looking for work in it now for over a year and there isn't anything out there. This is because past agencies, a mojority of which who have now closed, got it wrong by selling stuff that was full of bells and whistles but no real functionality...
Read Jeffery Veen, Jakob Neilsen etc, all is explained there. Current trends have gone "Retro" and more focused on Content and functionality as well as low cost...
I will return with some names of faliures and successes...
>I could read books on all those topics (in fact I have read some) and still it wouldn't make me a good designer. I could also speculate that many of the principles that these books/studies state are things best learnt by doing, not by reading a book/paper on them. :)
True, design is about creativity but not all people are creative visually. Any one can draw, but not everyone can communicate and image, identity or message vusually.
All these books are about "theory" basic principles which have been around and proven since the dawn of the rennaisance. I've sepnt years working in advertising, design and typography and learn't that these principles are true and needed...
>I'm always very dubious of people who start babbling about "Basic Design Principles" and "Asthetic Form", sometimes you're left with the feeling that all they really want to say is do things my way, I know best. Not the case here I'm sure. :)
Again, it's theory and principles, and Graphic Designer knows about them. The reason i quit Art College was due to being told how to do things instead of developing my own style, but the principles are still the same in any form of graphical communication...
Wow. A great discussion going on. I've been beavering away at work so only just got time to check in with the forums. But I think everybody who has posted here has made some good points about this.
Tyla, I suppose you are right about the "more" button, indeed, I use it on my own home pagefunkygamer.com , I think I got a bit carried away. But "Next" annoys me now. I saw a web site last night with about a paragraph of text on a page with a "Next" button which lead to another page with one paragraph, and so on. How annoying is that?
And yes Garin, reading about design and interfaces does not immediately make you an expert, but at least you get the big picture on the whole HCI thing. Web people shouldn't be designing flat pages with "next" buttons, they should be designing a user experience which makes you feel all aglow and ready to buy into the message that the site is pushing.
It seems that Fogmaster likes intros though... Interesting to know if he is on a 56k modem.
I have made these same mistakes in the past, so I suppose I should be more tolerant. But from a users point of view, I don't care about splash pages. OK. When UK broadband is the rule rather than the exception, bring on some new-wave multimedia sites, but until then, stop wasting my time and phone bill.
Tyla, I suppose you are right about the "more" button, indeed, I use it on my own home page
And yes Garin, reading about design and interfaces does not immediately make you an expert, but at least you get the big picture on the whole HCI thing. Web people shouldn't be designing flat pages with "next" buttons, they should be designing a user experience which makes you feel all aglow and ready to buy into the message that the site is pushing.
It seems that Fogmaster likes intros though... Interesting to know if he is on a 56k modem.
I have made these same mistakes in the past, so I suppose I should be more tolerant. But from a users point of view, I don't care about splash pages. OK. When UK broadband is the rule rather than the exception, bring on some new-wave multimedia sites, but until then, stop wasting my time and phone bill.
no i'm using broadband, I think I like them because I like using flash myself so it's intresting to see what other people do with it, also I like moving things, makes the site a little more interactive.
Tyla wrote:
> History has already
> proven this, look at the .com bust, boo.com etc... The industry is dead at the
> moment, I should know, I've been looking for work in it now for over a year and
> there isn't anything out there. This is because past agencies, a mojority of
> which who have now closed, got it wrong by selling stuff that was full of bells
> and whistles but no real functionality...
I think this isn't really what we're talking about. .com businesses went bust because of flawed business models based upon unrealistic predictions of what the market was and what it was potentially going to be. They were trying to tap into revenue streams that basically didn't really exist yet. Investment and hype pumped up the internet into something it wasn't ready to be. Agencies may have been delivering the wrong product, but thats a bit further than site design and its basic principles, no?
> Again, it's theory and principles, and Graphic Designer knows about
> them. The reason i quit Art College was due to being told how to do things
> instead of developing my own style, but the principles are still the same in any
> form of graphical communication...
Theory and principle, the barrier to innovation. :)
-G
> History has already
> proven this, look at the .com bust, boo.com etc... The industry is dead at the
> moment, I should know, I've been looking for work in it now for over a year and
> there isn't anything out there. This is because past agencies, a mojority of
> which who have now closed, got it wrong by selling stuff that was full of bells
> and whistles but no real functionality...
I think this isn't really what we're talking about. .com businesses went bust because of flawed business models based upon unrealistic predictions of what the market was and what it was potentially going to be. They were trying to tap into revenue streams that basically didn't really exist yet. Investment and hype pumped up the internet into something it wasn't ready to be. Agencies may have been delivering the wrong product, but thats a bit further than site design and its basic principles, no?
> Again, it's theory and principles, and Graphic Designer knows about
> them. The reason i quit Art College was due to being told how to do things
> instead of developing my own style, but the principles are still the same in any
> form of graphical communication...
Theory and principle, the barrier to innovation. :)
-G
Garin wrote:
> Theory and principle, the barrier to
> innovation. :)
Innovation is driven by theory, the two co-exist.
> Theory and principle, the barrier to
> innovation. :)
Innovation is driven by theory, the two co-exist.
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