What If...

[artlink]

Fresh from the oven, the new version of our website: www.whatif.ie

still some features missing, but they are on their way

tell me what you think of it and if it runs ok on your computer + specs if possible.

Enjoy!

[artlink]

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[artlink]

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[artlink]

70 views and not a single reaction..

Am I missing something here?

Or maybe there's just nothing to say about it

[artlink]

Cool, thanks for that lads !

I think I'm gonna try to be the thread with the biggest amount of views without any comment on it.

Got to keep yourself entertained somehow.

Going to 100

yipiiii

[3PRIMATES]

Hello.
Overall I think the site is interesting although its not my favorite design style.
The big text throughout the site is a bit of a turn-off for me.
I would left justify your text links throughtout. i.e in the groups section
I think the site accomplishes what you wish it to, but for me its a bit haphazzard in its design.

Overall the functionality is good and loads quickly for me.
I dont care for the menu that goes away. I would rather see the menu at all times. But thats just me.

Hope it helps.
3P

I.E 6 on windows XP
P4 3.06 GHZ, with 1 GB of ram

[artlink]

Thanks for that.

Indeed it's not aming to be a trendy dj site but more to be informative and to serve its purpose for community groups (ow thats not sexy and trendy at all)

I've browse through tons of site here and there and most of them look the same and the better they look the emptier they are in content.

Because of the people we're aiming as well it's design for 800/600 resolution, and nothing above that. So I felt kinda short of space --> hence the disapearing menu. Maybe not the best way to do it, but eh you got to give it a try.

And yeah your comment were really helpful. Thanks again.

[ltheiler1]

artlink,

Sounds like an interresting set of installations you've put together over there. Lots of people contributing ideas. Organizing the funding must have been a full time job!

Anyway, about the website.

Main Navigation
----------------
I agree with 3PRIMATES about the main navigation. It would appear you have the space available to move the content to have the brush "hanging" out at the top of the page throughout the site.

When you enter a particular section of the site, "groups" for example. If you wander through the pages, then click on the "menu" button, and then try to click on the link to the section you're currently in, it doesn't take you back to the front of that section.

If you decide after clicking on the menu button to continue to peruse the "groups" section, the brush remains at the top of the page and doesn't move until you select a different section...this would be taken care of if the link to the section your in reloads that particular section...not sure if that make sense typed out, but it makes sense in my head.

I really like the little security camera you've got attached to the brush, is it possible to work on an x-axis rotation as well, so when the mouse is to the left of the camera it flips over and points to the left, or would that make the item over animated?

Groups Section
---------------
When I was inside the "groups" section, the navigation wasn't exactly intuitive.

It took a while for me to realize that to get back to the list of groups from a particular group, I had to click on the name of the group or the blue bar with the back down arrow in it...

It would seem that the blue box with the arrow indicates that there was more content to be revealed. A better solution might be to have an blue box and arrow to the left of the name of the group, and have an arrow pointing to the left.

I didn't realize until a bit further on that you could click on the orange boxes next to the main graphic and pull up new pictures by clicking them...might be a good idea to put a call to action (like an orange box with a back down arrow) over that space. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the disappearing cursor, but I like the way the mouseover brings up a bigger picture...

Actions
--------
Pretty much identical to the groups critique.


People
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Core Team - looks good, works great.

Participants - Considering these people are part of the group, but aren't going to get their names at the top of the page like the folks in the Core team, would it be possible to keep the graphics from flipping by time...possibly have the graphic behind a mask, and let the user move the graphic up and down...would give a better feel to how many people were involved.

Residnecies - I'm not sure why the top picture is part of the artecheri project, and the bottom is part of the polystyrene tv project...I couldn't get a good feel for what either project really was. It would seem this particular part of the people section would benefit from being handled more like the groups section, where a description of each of the projects could fill the right hand side, and pictures of them could be on the left...

Installation
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I whiped up a similar map style project a while ago, and one of the things I finally ended up adding was a set of mouseovers on the map itself. That way the user could either mouse over the name or the map and get more info about it. I found that it was more intuitive and the users could get a better idea of what each part of the building was.

Take all these with a grain of salt, I know how much work you have put into this, but I think the site could benefit from some of the changes.

Lincoln

[artlink]

Jee thanks for that deep look inside the website and all part of your comment are really helpfull

So yeah, there were about 15 differents groups involved and 200 people.
The proces took us 8 months, and all that for 10,000 euros only. So a lot of volunteers helped, and at the end of it everybody was happy out. So cool.

It had to be accessible to the community person mainly, that's why flash 5 was used, because they aint web users really and won't install anything new.


ABOUT THE BRUSH MENU:

I agree with you guys, but I still love the idea of having it out of the way, so I think I will set something for it to disapear anyway from the screen after -lets say- 5 seconds, and work as well on the possibility to bring back the sub menu with the names of the groups. Something clearer.

Same thing with the orange buttons. I think I'll keep the same system, but pics will change "on mouse over" better then "on mouse click"

I know it's not a good excuse, but this all website was made like in 2 weeks and we change the navigation system pretty often because we were not sure how to display the infos and everything was related to something else, so we had to keep it as clear as possible. Getting there soon I hope.

PEOPLE

Yep, again I aint sure its still clear in our head and things may change there. Actually participants gather all the people not only people from the community groups, so it's hard to have like sections and the residency aint clear I agree with that.

INSTALLATION

I think I will add the option with mouse over the gfx - sure!
Do you still have a link to the map you did?


I take all those remarks and any remarks with a lot of pleasure and any look can benefit the website, I am convince by that.

Cheers

[ltheiler1]

Glad you're taking the comments so well. It's a good site and can benefit from just a few little things...

Here's the file I whiped up. Once it loads, click on the "two bedroom" or "three bedroom" links, when you mouse over a particular room, it highlights and lets you move the camera to that room. Please don't be offended by the clunkieness of the application, it was done three years ago now: Wilderness Flash Utility.

How did you get involved with the group that put together the set of installation? Is it correct to call it the "What If" group?

[artlink]

jee if we're getting in my very complicated life it would be worst than debugging actionscript, but to put it short:

- spent 10 months in Asia
- met irish girl in malaysia
- went to her place around here in cork - Ireland
- on day 2 sent a postcard to my friends/family "hi mom"
- saw an ad in the post office: this group was looking for people
- they had pretty much everything except somebody to create website and stuff
- there it started

Had a look at your map, yep "mouse over" work cool but I think if you have the image of the place you're over it's even more obvious for people, better than just a slide show - thats what I will do

Aimimg lazy surfers

[ltheiler1]

: )

Sounds like a plan, like I said, it's been a long time since I set up that tour, I'd really like to have done things differently, but hind-sight is alway 20/20...

Sounds like you've had a couple of pretty crazy years. Congratulations on your involvment with the group. It sounds very artistic and inspiring.

[artlink]

Yep you can talk about involvment, because thats really what it is.

Spent - too much ? - years creating commercial medias (film-print-web-games) and god knows that its good for the money and bad for the soul, so yeah at some stage you badly need some...substance...something that won't involve selling a yoghourt...

I thought long ago to start a discussion here about the fact that TONS of site that were created (excluding the commercial ones with obvious purpose) were lacking any substance. It's just as if everybody could talk but nobody had much to say. And got fed up of "very cool designed" sites where you discover after two click that there was nothing behind the shining set. But then though that it was probably just me being bitter or expecting too much. So I just let it go.

Probably better like that.

--> Watcha gonna with your flash skills kids ?

[ltheiler1]

It's interresting to stumble on websites that are absolutely beautiful, but contain no content worth posting. It proves that content management can be as critical as design itself.

I took an oil painting class a long time ago, and the teacher's first rule was "Have an underlying abstract idea"...basicly, he wanted us to realize that just because we could do somehting didn't mean it should be done.

What's next for the group installation? Is it permanent, or will it only be aroudn for a year or two?

Lincoln

[artlink]

Originally Posted by ltheiler1

just because we could do somehting didn't mean it should be done.

Could everybody just hear you...

The installation was there for 10 days in July only, so this is just to keep track of it.

We will continue the project next year but differently, which means a new website..eh eh

I've changed the navigation (with the little orange squares) in the GROUP/ACTION section and ow yeah - big time - thats way clearer when it loads the images on "mouseover" better than "on press".

thanks for that again.

Still got to find something for "click here to get the list of groups/actions"

before xmas because then a new story will begin

yay!