expiremental site

[Sole]

i've been working on a small expiremental site in Flash. i've somewhat modeled the interface after 2advanceds' interface. i'm not having any real problems with it, but i need some feedback. what would make it cool? whats bad, and whats cool? i also need a name for it.
as of now, its on a temporary site at nameless. Right now, theres no HTML, and the music tracks suck, but i'm workin on it. and another note, only three buttons work at this time, the bio, contact, and audio (the speaker at the right).
so go critique away at my work. Thanx.

[squink]

hmm..takin a while to load and im on cable.
nice site, maybe u should centre the movie.
u should post in the site check forum, you'll get more feedback there.

[Sole]

I noticed it takes a while to load on my 56K
I don't know, its never taken more than a minute or two to load, its not even more than a meg.
Its not centered right now because the HTML isn't centering it, I'll fix that pretty soon.
Theres a site check forum?

[carlodem]

yes, there is one.
Taking too much even on my T1 line.

ciao

[Waverebelz]

The design is dope. It didnt take time to load im on a T1 line. You should make an intro.
But nice try compressing the bg using a compression tool like photoshop 5.5 (For the web feature) or XAT image compressor, it should give you a better file size.

[snyx]

*clap* *clap*
That is one of the NICEST site I have EVER seen!
It loaded FINE on my 56k
And well I bookmarked it, JUST to show off!

I am IN YOUR DEBT my man!

[stevestarr]

Very nice, i am clapping my hands right now. Steve

[mg33]

You know, I can tell that this is going to be impressive soon, but there is nothing there other than graphics really.
One thing I would suggest is to center it on the page, or have it open as a popup. It is a small viewing area, and it's just up there in the corner all black behind it. It is just begging to be centered, or to have a frame, or be in its own window. I think the background graphic looks nice. What is the sketch box for, and why would I need to drag it? Please don't take this questions as criticism, I am not at all trying to make it sound like that. It is just that there are two things I notice here. It's called "sketch box" yet, I cannot sketch anything. Second, why would I need to drag it? This is not in any way directed to your site, but I always ask myself and others the question, "What good is a draggable window in a Flash site? For games, yes, they are important. But in a site, you have the oppurtunity to make everything fit in place. If it fits, why would I want to drag it anywhere? The other thing I am kind of picky about here is that sometimes these dragable clips are used becuase the clip's dissapearance is not dependant on using the navigation, meaning that as you click sections of a navigation, the visible clip or clips do not go away.
A perfect example of this lies in the site you are modelling, 2Advanced. This site is fantastic, I always enjoy looking at it and seeing what is new. However, the one thing that annoys me with it is that the sections do not close when you click a new section, they get placed behind the section you were previously viewing. I do realize that there is a button to close this, but why can't it just go away, and the new clip come up? Here's a perfect example: When you are reading a magazine, you have a table of contents. You read some pages in an article, then want something new, so you flip back to the table of contents, or just browse through the magazine. Then, you find what you want to read, and you can do that, because the previous pages are not in the way.
To me, a web site should be the same way.
I have made this statement in here many times about the draggable windows. Why spend all the time doing the script for them (although I don't know how long that takes, and never will because I will never do that) when there is really no point to them, when you could spend that time doing something more beneficial to a site? Such as making a really nice navigation, not just a similiarity to text rollovers, or, creating a vertical or horizontal scroller that you only have to hold the mouse down on an arrow to move the page down, not click over and over so that one line of text appears with every click? It's little questions like this that I ask myself, and always look at in the design decisions of others sites.

Well, hope this helps you out. Granted I may sound like an overly critical person, and I know I am, it drives me crazy! But it gives me a certain sense of thankfullness that I have this charecteristic with design, because it always keeps me in check, makes me analyze what I am doing before I do it, not after it is done and I am finished. Being an Advertising major in college, I find this critical nature to be a valuable skill, it's something I wish everyone had, no matter how much it would annoy them. Because in Advertising, you make a mistake in the design and creation of a product, the marketing does not work, and then... the client has spend thousands or millions on their campaign, and they are not selling a thing, becuase the ad does not work. That's how I think of it. Now, I know this is your personal site, so it's nothing like an Ad campaign, a college grade, or the difference between being paid another day or being on the street. But if I can just get a little bit of this way of thinking into the minds of the people I talk to, work with, and go to school with, everyone will benefit.

Good luck, feel free to e-mail me with any questions regarding your site and how you are doing with it.

mg33

[thigh_master]

well put, mg33

[Sole]

Woh, thanks for the feedbacks guys. mg33, i printed out ur post so I could figure out what u were saying. I'll be sure to apply what you guys said, as with the site layout, I may change it somewhat to go with that one part I understood. As with the Sketch Box, I called it that because it is where I'm going to put all the small Flash "sketches".
I know graphics are most of the site, but no ones wants to know anything about me, and theres not much to put on an personal expiremental site Thanx for the replys guys.
Sole