New Site - Need feedback Please - www.eightyonedesign.co.uk

[swillicott]

Hi,

just approaching the finish of my new site. As you can see from the site I am not really a flash website developer but more of a graphic designer but have managed to get this site up and running.

I could do with some feedback on usability / design / general comments.

Also, if someone could test my flash detection that would be great as i have never done it before.

here is the site: http://www.eightyonedesign.co.uk

i appreciate any comments you have.

thanks

steve

[Paul Ferrie]

Something seems to initially load before flash kicks in. Full page of text, to quick to make out what it is.

[swillicott]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, the page you see load initially is a html page with the flash detection swf from the adobe flash detection kit embedded on it. it checks at that stage if the user has the required flash player and it not leaves you on the html page but if you do takes you to the flash page. Like I say, I have never done any flash detection before and as this was the kit supplied by Adobe i thought this was the right way of doing it - is there another / better / easier way?

any thoughts on the overall design of the flash site?

Thanks

Steve

[Paul Ferrie]

Hi Steve.
I haven't done any work with the adobe swf detection kit so don't know if there is an easier way. As far how it looks well i have to say i have seen worse first attempts with flash. Everything seems to do what it's supposed to.

[swillicott]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your comments.

Anyone else have any views?

Steve

[peter]

I just like it alot.
I think it will work out fine for little company.
It has this kind of 'feel good' to it. Fresh!

[swillicott]

Thanks peter - glad you like it.

Steve

[matbury]

I liked it - clean simple and dynamic - everything that basic Flash design is about.

The video - Why did you put that on video? It looks like a Flash animation. Since there's no audio to sync with it it's just using up bandwidth for no apparent reason.

The pop-up window for the "news" section was a bit unnecessary. It wouldn't be too difficult to load that into Flash from the HTML page, a text file, XML, etc., then you'd have a more coherent, integrated looking site.

For Flash detection, try: http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/

This also gets rid of the annoying "click to activate" thing in IE.

I hope this helps.

[swillicott]

Hi Matbury,

Thanks for the post.

Regarding the video, you are right it was originally created in flash. However, Each animation is a separate flash movie which was exported to quicktime so they could be edited together in the desired order and then looped on a dvd so the client can play this animation in the shop fron of his bakery branches. It was for this reason that it was quicker for me to change the video file to flash video for use on the site rather than go back into flash and have to patch all the separate flash movies together. It was really a case of time than anything else. Also, I am not sure how you can re-size an entire flash movie with out it throwing our all your keyframes?? But I take your point on board.

I realise the news section could have been created in flash but the idea behind the javascript popup was to have some textual content that search engines could rank. This is why there is another text link outside the flash movie for the search engines to click through and read the relevent content and hopefully improve rankings. I do not have any experience of XML, but how would you load the html page in to the flash file?

I have had a look at the swfobject flash detection method but I am not sure if I am understanding it right. Would there be a html page with content on (in html) that the flash file loads over (using javascript) meaning that if the relevant plug in was detected then the flash would load but otherwise the html page would remain underneath and visible? Am I way Off??

I will look into loading the swf using javascript - I had always wondered how flash sites could validate and I guess this is how?

Thanks

Steve

[matbury]

I see your point about the pop-up. It's both an advantage and disadvantage that webcrawlers can't read Flash text. The main advantage is that spamcrawlers can't read your clients' email addresses!


Also, I am not sure how you can re-size an entire flash movie without it throwing out all your keyframes??

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Have you used gotoAndPlay() or gotoAndStop() in your movies?

If so, it's better practice to use frame labels instead. Frame labels always stay the same whereas frame numbers change if you add or remove frames. The syntax is pretty simple: e.g. gotoAndPlay("myFrameLabel");

You can apply frame labels in the properties inspector by clicking on a frame in the Timeline panel. You'll see where you normally type in instance names, it'll say, "<Frame Label>".


As for the SWFObject embedder - check out the example files that come with it. He's created some HTML pages that use SWFObject and a sample SWF. You can adapt one of his pages (or create one of your own), they're really very simple.

If you'd like to learn more about XML, there's some fantastic video tutorials by Lee Brimelow at : http://www.gotoandlearn.com/download.php

The tutorials on video basics are great too if you intend to work with video a lot in Flash.

[swillicott]

Thanks again Matbury.

I have had another look at the swfObject javascript embed method and given it a go. If some people would be kind enough to test for me that would be great - especially on a pc as I currently do not have access to a PC. Can somebody tell me whether this has gotten rid of the 'click to activate...' thing in IE?

here are the links:

http://www.eightyonedesign.co.uk/flash_content/main-java-embed.html

and if you want to see the alt non flash content:

http://www.eightyonedesign.co.uk/flash_content/main-java-embed-noflash.html

regarding the other issue Matbury - I do use frame labels rather than gotoandplay etc. But I was referring to the problem i find when I have a large stage area in flash (as this was for DVD - widescreen anamorphic) and if I was to then resize the stage to a small web type size to show the movie on the web. I would have tried to just amend the stage size manually to whatever pixel size required but then my content would be too large and in some cases not even on the stage! and to go through and resize all mc's and get the spacing and timing right on my keyframes would have been a very long job. I would think there would be a way to resize everything including all the assets but I could not find it? i am not sure if i am making too much sense??

Anyway, all testers welcome for the links above.

Thanks

Steve

[Cabezon]

First sorry if my english is poor. :)
Now i tested it on my Mac and it works great (the link you provided) no more text before the flash content appears. Also nice webpage.
Cabezon

[matbury]

I had look at your SWFObject page on a slow PC with IE 6. Everything works fine and there's no "click to activate". One thing - don't forget to change the title of the web page (I know because I've done it!).

I also tested it with Firefox 2, which doesn't have the annoying "click to activate" thing anyway. Your embedded SWF triggered scrollbars to the right and under it. Around 25% of PC users use Firefox now, although I suspect most are developers or designers. Still, 25% is a lot of people o probably worth looking into.


And about this:

regarding the other issue Matbury - I do use frame labels rather than gotoandplay etc. But I was referring to the problem i find when I have a large stage area in flash (as this was for DVD - widescreen anamorphic) and if I was to then resize the stage to a small web type size to show the movie on the web. I would have tried to just amend the stage size manually to whatever pixel size required but then my content would be too large and in some cases not even on the stage! and to go through and resize all mc's and get the spacing and timing right on my keyframes would have been a very long job. I would think there would be a way to resize everything including all the assets but I could not find it? i am not sure if i am making too much sense??


Now I understand what you mean, I was completely off track!

Sometimes it is quicker and easier to draw your animations at authoring time but the main drawback, as you can see, is that it's difficult to make changes afterwards.

I'm from a design background too and I prefer drawing stuff on the screen. (I like that you understand typography and layout - quite rare in web-design these days!). I've learnt, though, that wherever possible it's best to use ActionScript to animate stuff. Two of the main benefits are increased interactivity to get a really "wow" effect on your users, and the other is that you can make a lot of your measurements and layouts relative (e.g. in fractions - "var centerX:Number = Stage.width/2;") so that when you change stuff around, it all scales perfectly into place.

I like using the Tween class for simple animation: http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/tween.htm

And a lot of people here rave about Fuse for more complex stuff. I've yet to get to grips with it so I can't really comment on it:
http://www.mosessupposes.com/Fuse/


Hope this helps!