Some feedback would be appreciated...

[Chimpanzee]

Hi all,

I've finally published my first flash website at http://www.laurentobia.com. I'd really like some feedback on it.

A couple of things that i will still have to think about are the fact that it is ONLY player 9+ compatible so i need to find a way (Javascript or something) of checking that and i'm considering a preloader. I had made one but when the movie was run it didn't really work. It ignored some "go to and play" commmands on keyframes and didn't recognise any user interaction!? If you can think of any reason this might be happening please let me know.

But anyway, essentially it's finished and it works. Please remember when looking at it that the site is live so please don't try out the contact form because mail will be sent to my client. And please use FP9 as i'm sure most of you use anyway!

Thanks for any feedback or constructive criticism you can give

[renderhjs]

- veery big fonts and buttons (to big imo, give it a clumsy look), the only spot where I really like the typo and fontsize was the Links page (good job there).
- long transitions (at the start = not good imprssion on everyone) could be faster for my taste
- the 1 pix black outline aruound images imo doesn´t fit at all to the overal design- maybe make it grey and thicker so it fits to the rest of the design

why is it only Flash Player 9 compatible,- it doesn´t look like a flash movie to me that couldn´t been done in Flash 5 at least.

[flashMine]

Hi Andrew,

Nice site; simple and elegant, fitting the content.

I agree with all the above comments, though, only the font on the "contact" page may be too large (the "about" page seems ok - at the biggest).

Some other comments:

Embed method:
I think you should use Geoff Stearns' javascript method (as recommended by FlashKit) which is found here: http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/
You may have noticed the ugly grey box around your movie in MS Internet Explorer. This method gets rid of that, and the need to click on the movie to activate it (ie make rollovers work).

HTML Layout:
Bad to use tables still. If you want your movie to take up the entire page, Geoff's method gives a nice way of doing that. I've used it here to show you:
http://www.chrisjones.org.uk/misc/draw.php

Portfolio Arrangement:
I initially got confused about the thumbs - I thought we were initially shown only two from each section. Only later did I realise that all of the first six were from "children's" (well done on the correct usage of apostophes, btw, you'd be surprised at how many mistakes I've seen). Maybe this could be remedied by making the surrounding shading slightly darker to make the grouping more noticeable.

With the outline around the main image here and the way it overlaps "scribble scribble", it looks the movie's made some sort of mistake. Maybe "scribble scribble" could be faded out or maybe make sure the images are never so large as to overlap it.

Contact Form:
I think you should make the first field, "Your Name", automatically focused. For the visitor, it's annoying having to go back to the mouse after already having swapped it for the keyboard. you can find details of how to do this on Adobe's LiveDocs:
setFocus


I hope some of this helps.
Regards,
Chris

[Chimpanzee]

Hi Andrew,

Nice site; simple and elegant, fitting the content.

I agree with all the above comments, though, only the font on the "contact" page may be too large (the "about" page seems ok - at the biggest).

Some other comments:

Embed method:
I think you should use Geoff Stearns' javascript method (as recommended by FlashKit) which is found here: http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/
You may have noticed the ugly grey box around your movie in MS Internet Explorer. This method gets rid of that, and the need to click on the movie to activate it (ie make rollovers work).

HTML Layout:
Bad to use tables still. If you want your movie to take up the entire page, Geoff's method gives a nice way of doing that. I've used it here to show you:
http://www.chrisjones.org.uk/misc/draw.php

Portfolio Arrangement:
I initially got confused about the thumbs - I thought we were initially shown only two from each section. Only later did I realise that all of the first six were from "children's" (well done on the correct usage of apostophes, btw, you'd be surprised at how many mistakes I've seen). Maybe this could be remedied by making the surrounding shading slightly darker to make the grouping more noticeable.

With the outline around the main image here and the way it overlaps "scribble scribble", it looks the movie's made some sort of mistake. Maybe "scribble scribble" could be faded out or maybe make sure the images are never so large as to overlap it.

Contact Form:
I think you should make the first field, "Your Name", automatically focused. For the visitor, it's annoying having to go back to the mouse after already having swapped it for the keyboard. you can find details of how to do this on Adobe's LiveDocs:
setFocus


I hope some of this helps.
Regards,
Chris

Sorry to resurrect an old post, I just wanted to say thanks for all your feedback. For some reason I wasn't emailed when a response to my post was made? Weird.
Anyway, when I get home this evening I'll try out the embed method you suggested and the other things. I don't think the embed method I'm using at the moment it very good. When i open the page in DW CS3 it asks me if i want to change it but if i do it stops working in IE7? I can't remember exactly what it did but it was annoying!!

Thanks again.

[MagnusVS]

Nice site! But you should speed up the frame rate!

[Chimpanzee]

Hmmm. The frame rate is 25 fps. Hows it displaying for you?

[renderhjs]

30 is better

[Chimpanzee]

Normal TV and films are only played at about 25 or 27. Why does it need to be so fast? It runs pretty smoothly for me?

[renderhjs]

because interactive motion is different from predefined interlaced motion such as movies. Would you enjoy playing a 3d game (shooter, race game,...) with dropping 25 frames? - I rather not because it feels somewhat chunky - it´s true that with 24 fps usually a human eye can´t detect single frames anymore and a movie with 60 fps for example doesn´t feel filmish anymore but interactive stuff (where you decide the timing) is a different area.

[Chimpanzee]

Ah. Well, you learn something new every day!

[MagnusVS]

I use 42 fps.

[Chimpanzee]

Does running at that high framerate have much of an effect on the download size or the end-users' system performance?

EDIT: MagnusVS, I just had a look at your gallery. Very slick. I can see the difference a higher framerate makes. Is the gallery automated in terms of updating?

[MagnusVS]

Does running at that high framerate have much of an effect on the download size or the end-users' system performance?

As far as I know, it doesn't affect download size. The system performance depends on the machine running it, but I don't think it should be a big problem.

EDIT: MagnusVS, I just had a look at your gallery. Very slick. I can see the difference a higher framerate makes. Is the gallery automated in terms of updating?

The gallery is partly automated: I have to upload both original images and thumbnails. Then I have to edit a xml file so that it shows up in the menu.

[Chimpanzee]

The gallery is partly automated: I have to upload both original images and thumbnails. Then I have to edit a xml file so that it shows up in the menu.

When I'd finished the artist's website I thought I wish I'd used xml. I've embedded the pictures into the flash file and it's a bit trickier to update. I can't be bothered to go back and change it now.