1st full flash site -- I need some painful honesty from you gurus out there...

[Sooner]

I'm working on my first full flash site.

I've done some intro's before and a couple of CD's for work, but never a full flash site.

Everyone I know goes crazy about the stuff I do, but I live in a small town with very few real designers and even fewer people who know anything about the internet.

I'm working on a flash site for my company, but I think its lacking. Its okay, but I'd like you guys to critique it for me. Feel free to be painfully honest. It seems I'm missing something but I'm not sure what. Maybe one of you do?

I'm sending you to a link that you can click and it will open the page in the size I want it to. I'll have a nice looking design on my home page you can click when the flash is done. For now, you can get to there from here: http://www.isodesigns.com/enhanced/newsite.html

Only the web section of the portfolio has been started on and I haven't created the php page for the form. But there is enough that has been done for you to get the idea.
Fire away...

btw, how long does it normally take you guys to do a flash site?
And how much do you charge as compared to an HTML site? Comparable? Or more?

[Dan5190]

You need to dress up the 'enter site' page, its boring and plain. It would be best if you made it in flash, but whatever, just make it look good. Other than that, I think what it is lacking is the background of the main pages. I think it might be too plain, but who knows...it is definitely the background thats lacking though.

[soani]

very nice =), But dan is right, fix the enter site thing, its boring, now for the flash, Very good, Dan is right again lol the flash does need a backround besides that face thing, I didnt like the face thing that much, It kinda took away from the site..

[Sooner]

Thanks for the comments...

The 'Enter Site' page is boring? Are you kidding me? That's the most exciting page I've ever created ... KIDDING.

In the original post I was trying to say that the 'enter site' page is temporary and only there so you can click the link and launch the flash page in the right sized window. I'm going to have a link (nice button) from the main page of my site and it will then launch this flash movie. I haven't edited my home page to put this button on there because the flash movie isn't finished. So, to get to the flash, I created the temporary 'enter site' page.

I'll look at making the eye in the background better.

I've also thought about it and I think I might need some better page transitions too...

You're free to keep posting your opinions though, I'd like to get a good feel of what people think and a wide range of opinions too.

[RiptideWarrior]

Maybe a little on the simplistic side but not bad. Especially for your first piece. You are only going ot get better from here.

I would offer that you should mayube consider addidng a little more to your proeloder than you have now. At least a percentage loaded would be nice.
But I noticed when I went back through your site a second time that I still had to wait through the exact same preloding sequence - for the same duration. Which leads me to believe that this was perhaps some delay animation instead of a true preloader? Either way, maybe consider smoothing that out a bit. You will have to get better with Ascript - but thats also inevitable if you want to get really good!

[JediMind]

I think its boring and square, but the technic is good, just fill it up and your off to a great start i think.

so far nothing work, so who can tell.

[sk8Krog]

This is a very common style. Nothing new and inventive here, but to be honest, I am sick of seeing every site based around dark blue and with an overlay grid on the background image. If this is what you want to work with, than do it, but make sure you recognize that this is no original idea and it won't make you stand out.
As for the site, the music off button does not work, the navigation is a bit difficult to read on the dark background and kind of difficult to discover. Just little images on the bottom of the screen isn't noticeable enough. I would add a quick little animation to let the user know that thats the navigation.
All in all, a good first attempt, but you really need to show off your design and usability skills rather than your "I can duplicate everything else" skills.

[Dan5190]

Alright, I can see you've updated it, and it looks much better; I like what you did with the background. However, let me give you a couple of suggestions:
1) You have to have some kind of text or something when the user first gets to the main interface. You had good animations, and the buttons flew in and stuff, but I still thought it was loading because nothing came up that told me where I was. Don't make the user have to figure out what to do.
2) Make the 'sound on' & 'sound off' buttons more subtle. Right now they look kinda cheesy.

Other than that, very well done.

[Sooner]

Thanks for the comments.

I was thinking about taking it down while working on it but decided to just leave it up for any flashkit guys who might want to look at it.

The preloader is kicking my butt, which is very unexpected. But I'll get it worked out.

I'll change the sound buttons, they do look very out of place now. And I'll add some sort of text for when the page first loads. If its confusing to someone on this site, it will be like Greek, written backwards, to most other people.

It is still a work in progress...