Site Check!

**amiwai** · 10-15-2002, 03:02 AM

Hi,

This is a personal portfolio site. I need mooooooore comment, Tell me what U think and Pls give comment or Ur suggestions, Thanks

http://sg.geocities.com/deicidezdesignstudio

**j4mes** · 10-15-2002, 06:12 AM

posted twice! eek!

**j4mes** · 10-15-2002, 06:13 AM

Its a bit frustrating. Some parts of the site are so good, but others...not so good:

-ve's
1/pop up not centered (petty i know but it makes such a difference)
2/why should i go to the effort of moving a battery into the space to load a menu. It might just be me being overly critical but to be perfectly honest i don't see why its there and therefore i don't see why i should go to all the effort of picking it up and moving it, when you could do that for me, especially as its your stuff that you want to show me! If it doesnt serve a purpose...
3/Profile is a long winding road that got me no-where and made me angry...does it ever end, i couldn't wait any longer so i moved to the next section.
3/does that skip button actually work? the intro seems to play regardless, whilst loading the content in the bottom of the page at the same time.
4/When I look at the page i feel like the top is competing with the bottom for attention. The two sections seem a little too far away from each other(nice flashy stuff off top left/text based content bottom centered) moving them closer together/ making a clearer definition between the two would make so much difference.

+ves
1/Your animation is great. the intro looks goos as do the transitions like the one on the art gallery page.(all of them should be this length imo!)
2/Flash coding is good, especially on the preloaders.
3/overall design ideas.presentation.attention to detail is all good.

Hope I haven't been too harsh, its just my critical opinion....and you did ask for it! Hope this helps!

//James

**amiwai** · 10-15-2002, 09:35 PM

Originally posted by j4mes
Its a bit frustrating. Some parts of the site are so good, but others...not so good:

-ve's
1/pop up not centered (petty i know but it makes such a difference)
2/why should i go to the effort of moving a battery into the space to load a menu. It might just be me being overly critical but to be perfectly honest i don't see why its there and therefore i don't see why i should go to all the effort of picking it up and moving it, when you could do that for me, especially as its your stuff that you want to show me! If it doesnt serve a purpose...
3/Profile is a long winding road that got me no-where and made me angry...does it ever end, i couldn't wait any longer so i moved to the next section.
3/does that skip button actually work? the intro seems to play regardless, whilst loading the content in the bottom of the page at the same time.
4/When I look at the page i feel like the top is competing with the bottom for attention. The two sections seem a little too far away from each other(nice flashy stuff off top left/text based content bottom centered) moving them closer together/ making a clearer definition between the two would make so much difference.

+ves
1/Your animation is great. the intro looks goos as do the transitions like the one on the art gallery page.(all of them should be this length imo!)
2/Flash coding is good, especially on the preloaders.
3/overall design ideas.presentation.attention to detail is all good.

Hope I haven't been too harsh, its just my critical opinion....and you did ask for it! Hope this helps!

//James

Hi J4mes,

Finally there's someone can have me a damn good comment, Thanks Man.

Intro part(drag in battery) -
Actually i wanted to take out long time only put a side because busy with other thing,
now i think should take it out first.

Profile -
I'll shorten the "The Road To Profile".

Skip Button is not working now, maybe will take this out.
I'll my best to change some of the thing.

Thanks Again

**amiwai** · 10-17-2002, 12:27 AM

Hi,

there's few change in my site, give me some comment, Thanks

**absolutezero** · 10-17-2002, 02:42 AM

I like the main section of the site where the large battery is. Other, that is where everything should happen. My eyes get distracted and don't see all the sub navigation for the portfolio and so on. Should be easier for people to know where they are going.

Cool though.

**amiwai** · 10-17-2002, 03:13 AM

Originally posted by absolutezero
My eyes get distracted and don't see all the sub navigation for the portfolio and so on. Should be easier for people to know where they are going.

Hi,

Do U mean the slide hard to find it?

Thanks for U comment

**macross_801** · 10-17-2002, 03:38 AM

it's a great work, overall.

comments->

1/ why dont you highlight the menu for section of the site the visitor is currently in... [profile, etc..] Or label each section clearly on the left or right corner of the each mc that loads.

2/ animation can use some more speed. double the speed, and see what it does for you. Not everyone has the patience, however great or short it may be.

3/ I see no point in having a 'news' window at the bottom of the page, you do not want to distract the visitor especially when he's in your portfolio section. It would make more sense, if you were to integrate it into the main page, or a separate news sub menu.

You site isnt big enough to require a constant news frame, right?

i'll stop ranting now.

**formiga** · 10-17-2002, 04:15 AM

post again....argh!

**kdesign1** · 10-17-2002, 04:52 AM

Oh yeah! Like it very much! excelent 3d stuff and animations, props! It runs very smooth and fast.
Only I find the navigation under portfolio a little hard to understand in the beginning. You have to click 2 much before you see you work and people want to click and not to think, so what do you get > people see 2 images and then the quit. For example, under print, when you click for next and you click again you are at the first one, maybe change the possition of the buttons

.

**amiwai** · 10-17-2002, 05:14 AM

Originally posted by kdesign1
Oh yeah! Like it very much! excelent 3d stuff and animations, props! It runs very smooth and fast.
Only I find the navigation under portfolio a little hard to understand in the beginning. You have to click 2 much before you see you work and people want to click and not to think, so what do you get > people see 2 images and then the quit. For example, under print, when you click for next and you click again you are at the first one, maybe change the possition of the buttons .

Understand what U mean, U R right, from begining of portfolio, a lot of people lost, That's why i created the 2nd part(info box below) I will explain how it works. Maybe U R right about the button possition. Thanks for U suggestions.

**erova** · 10-17-2002, 09:30 AM

i'd also recommend losing the battery sequence (James is right, the battery thing really is only a cute gimmick and unnecessary)

also watch your spelling on your definitions, but more importantly i'd reconsider the definitions entirely. you don't relate them to you or your skills, you're simply defining *innovative*, for example, instead of showing me some of your flash innovations....

basically you have a lot going on that can distract your user; that said, i do like your animations that swap in and out of each section..a little tighter language throughout the site and your target group of non-profits (who may not recognize the level of work that went into this, but they WILL recognize your voice in your writing) should be impressed.

**amiwai** · 10-18-2002, 12:52 AM

Thanks for the suggestions Erova, I'll look into it.

**amiwai** · 10-22-2002, 01:43 AM

Going to have a major change on my site, take a final view, and give me U comment.

**Plumb_Lunatic** · 10-22-2002, 08:10 AM

Okay, where to start…

You've got a lot of good ideas, but it seams to me that you've tried to shoe-horn too many of them into one thing.

1) As others have said, the battery at the beginning is more than a little pointless. It's Flash For Flash's Sake (FFFS), It adds nothing what-so-ever other than a stumbling block to the user.

2) Which sparks another point - to get any useful information out of your site you have to click four or five times (in the case of you folio, for example). And even then it's masked by any number of clever animations and trixey mechanisms.

The folio is a greate example of the above:
> click to open the folio
> so much then happens in the way of animation, you completely miss that mechanical arm and the little tabular module bits
> click to select a section
> click to play the section (which should have happened really on the previous click
> and then when you're in a section, the 'back' and 'next' buttons hop about - so when you click on the first 'next' button, it becomes the 'back' button. I spent the first 30 seconds in that section hopping between the first and second frames and thinking 'all this guys work looks the same!'

3) Your work - by the way - is the best bit of your site, but it's obscured and undermined by bad usability and so much self-indulgent flash jiggery-pokery.

4) I want to think about this battery idea for a minute. This whole battery thing looks great on one level - it suggests dynamism, power and energy. But on another level… put it this way, what's the one thing that can be said of all batteries - no matter what their capacity? That's right; they run out; they die; they need replacing or recharging - and in many cases, the above happens quite regularly. So what are you saying about your company/skills/creativity?

This underlying theme is echoed heavily in that opening sequence where you have to replace the battery. It says far more about you than you might think.

5) Never say 'under-construction'. Better to have no page or link there at all and the user not to know about it, than have them think that your product is half finished.

6) As new media designers, it is our job to take the problem solving process out of the hands of a user, and provide them - in most cases - with an interface/navigation structure and information architecture that requires little or no thought to be understood.

So at no point should a user ever have to be instructed as to how to use a nav system. If you nav is so complex, so abstract that you have to hold their hand the entire time, it's better to rethink your entire design, than to retro-fit it with a user-manual.

At the moment, one third of your site tells the user how to use the other two. If I presented a design like this to a client, the people who pay my wages would be handing me my P45.

This is harsh, I know, but it's also true.

If this were my site, I'd seriously consider starting again - from scratch. You focus seams to be wrong, you've approached it thinking, how can I wow a perspective client with this site, and all you've ended up doing is proving that you can produce a site which does a lot of 'stuff' but doesn't actually say anything.

You should be focusing on your 'heros' - your work (which is very good) and your CV. It's that that will get you a job.

Sorry. Flame away.

Plumb

**amiwai** · 10-22-2002, 11:18 PM

Hi Plumb,

U must be damn good in webdesign, share Ur work here. show us. The Best new media designers work.

I argee with U, but not everyting U point out.

"If I presented a design like this to a client, the people who pay my wages would be handing me my P45."
Understand this!
Plum, this my site and i do for my myself. I'm the client.

If U design a wow site for Ur client, so what, client don like it, does it mean the client no taste? no, Ur job is ****. I design base on client needs.

Comment is Comment, but Start from scratch?? joker

Thanks

**abumslife** · 10-23-2002, 01:19 AM

WOW... being new here and that being one of the first sites i check out... amazing stuff... do you plan on getting your own domain and getting rid of geocities...

your site is very motivating... thanks for sharing

**amiwai** · 10-23-2002, 01:28 AM

Originally posted by abumslife
WOW... being new here and that being one of the first sites i check out... amazing stuff... do you plan on getting your own domain and getting rid of geocities...

your site is very motivating... thanks for sharing

Yes, when 100% done, but going to have a big change on my site. Thanks

**abumslife** · 10-23-2002, 01:31 AM

if i was smart about all of this i would of did the same thing first... made my site on a fee host and then transfered everything but i kind of JUMPED right into everything... i felt i couldn't wait lol

**Plumb_Lunatic** · 10-23-2002, 04:10 AM

Hang on, that was an objective criticism - don't ever take it personally!

"If U design a wow site for Ur client, so what, client don like it, does it mean the client no taste?"

No if the client doesn't like a site I designed, I didn't do my job properly - bottom line.

"no, Ur job is ****. I design base on client needs."

I should hope you do, but I don't see what you're getting at.

But even if you did design the site for yourself, you still have to design it with a particular market in mind. If the purpose of your site is to pick up work, then you should design it acording to the profile of the kind of people you want to work for. Just bare that in mind.

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