A few points to think about when designing a website

[dutchboyjermaine]

what is a good website we ask our self?
is it 2advanced.com or lookandfeel.com
or maybe turtleshell.com etc ect etc

what makes these site so great is the question that we as desinger ( not flash artist ) should as our selves.
is it the animation and great sound track?
or is it the easy of use?

i dont know much about webdesign n flash ( yea sure )
but what i do know is that 90% ( or more ) of sites we see being labeled as cool sites arnt really fit 4 bussiness purposes.

if its your personal show off showcase site , than i think having all the fantastic animation is good.
why? cause the site has been designed 2 show case what you can do

but 4 a online media or e-commerge site i think that intro's should b ommitted. why?
ask your self this, if ure a consumer who wants ton find a good webdesign firm on the net do you want 2 sit there and watch a stupid intro that most of the time has nothing to do with what the site offers? ( all plz say no ) thats like going to the store 2 buy gas and standing inline watching the gas being advertised on a screen.

but there is a god and he gave us the SKIP feature....why place a skip feature there so that the consumer can just skip the movie? why not just leave the movie out and give trhe user what they came 4? information........

music is often very annoying when it comes 2 flash ..we tend 2 find the most exciting track and just place it in the flash movie......shakes my head........solution= music off button..hy does the user has 2 go thru all of the extra work 2 do this?..place a much more suitable form of music on ure websiet..if u place a techno track chances are tha elderly are going 2 b offended..if u place a classical..young ones will just say u suck...find music that suits every age group of websurfers

than there is the file size............*tisk tisk* how many time havnt i close my browser cause my cable modem was taking 2 long to download you 600kb file
i as a consumer dont want 2 wait on ure site 2 load
keep file size down

than we have 120000000000000000 fonts on the same page
WRONG
use 3 fonts
make em big n very visible..if ure font makes my eyes look chinese im gone..

navigation......................shakes my head...........i dont want 2 b searching on ure site ..i want easy and smooth navigation......make me search 2 much ill go 2 google...and plz stop with the complex navigational systems..i aint no test dummy for youb2 b testing your new flash project on..ill leave if i cant navigate with ease

when u design a page make sure that u design tha page/site 4 the consumers.....animations are nice but they get annoying..so do intro's..and plz .when i press the back button on my browser i expect 2 go to the last page i just visited..rather than to b stuck on the same page

what about the dissabled people? they have pc's 2..why do we seem 2 4 get about thm when we design our sites?? u know its the LAW to make ure site accessible to disabled right???????????

anywayz just keep in mind that good sites are site that has so few animation as possible and text fonts, low file size, good navigation,and your site sticks to the purpose it wa build 4 it doesnt have webdevelopment and cartoons show case on the same site

keep in mind that our sites are going to b viewed by consumers on mac;s and pc

plz make the sites as suitable 4 them as you can

jermaine

[dutchboyjermaine]

again excuse the typo and bad grammar...im alwayz in a hurry lol

[dph]

I agree. Get off the internet when you design. There's other mediums to get ideas from. Like a magazine or something.

[karnak]

you made some dead on observations, jermaine...

thanks for posting this.. I think this will be much more appropriate in the boardroom forum, so I'll move it there

cheers

[mg33]

Wow, I really enjoyed reading that. It's nice to read a post by someone whose really putting so much thought into what they want to say. (You'll soon find that I'm likely the one here with the longest posts. I've often spent around an hour writing one post about something.)

You bring up many good points. However one that is debatable is your point about intros. You say that intros are not neccesary on a media or business site. I disagree a bit there. I'm a senior college student majoring in Advertising, and I'll be graduating this May. I'm also doing a rather extensive research project on broadband issues for designers and internet marketing.

Intros serve a good purpose on a business related or media site. I think of them as an advertisement for the site-something quick that up front lets the user know the general message of the site. Sometimes it's better to go into a site alreay having a glimpse of what is in there. Intros accomplish that. Not all intros, becuase not all are created with that effectiveness and message in mind. Being quick and to the point is an important part of an intro. But you have to know what you're trying to accomplish with one. You need to get it done with as quick as possible. But in that short time you need to impress upon the viewer the things you feel they should know about the company.

If you show in an intro something that catches their eye, they'll be all the more interested when they are in the site. If the graphics of the intro are similiar to the site, they'll already be a bit familiar with the look of the site.

Like I said, they have to be effective to exist at all. A great number of designers lost focus on that, well, they probably never thought of it at all when they started using Flash so often.

Again, much thanks for the great post.

Take Care,

mg33