Flex site with edit

[Sekhar]

I'm working on a Flex site that's getting close to completion, still tweaking the design. I'd appreciate if you could take a look and let me know what you think. It's for an Asian Indian women's organization, so I tried to give it that personality.

Check it out at SDNari (http://1.latest.sdnari.appspot.com).

An interesting aspect is that you can directly edit the content. For a demo, click on the Edit link at the bottom and enter demo/demo as login/password. Then go to Overview, Officer bios, or Activities pages and click on them. You will be able to edit and save with Ctrl+S (though it won't actually save for demo login, of course).

I'll be adding an opening graphic/animation to show up while the site loads, but right now you pretty much get a white page.

I've hosted the data and server-side logic in the new Google App Engine (Java) cloud computing platform. Flex/GAE integration is through AMF using GraniteDS. For those interested in the implementation, check out my blog tutorial Cloud to RIA: Accessing Google App Engine (Java) Data Through Flex AMF (http://blog.allurefx.com/2009/05/cloud-to-ria-accessing-google-app.html).

[SarK0Y]

quite nicely, but all flash-sites have common problem: default operations(text's searching over current page, to change font & size, history) are not defined.

[tadster]

it's nice, but it would be good if all of the fonts would change, with your edit option.
And it is not clear that one has to first highlight the text to edit it.
really i don't go for all flash sites, your's caught my eye cause your doing a good deal of server work.
The design needs more, the fancy style fonts are not clear, also the golden bar is a bit grainy around the edges. i don't know what your SEO desires are, but that needs a touch too. It's somewhat eye pleasing, just need bigger fonts if they are going to be in that style, and also a more clear navigation.

[Sekhar]

quite nicely, but all flash-sites have common problem: default operations(text's searching over current page, to change font & size, history) are not defined.

True, though there's some history with this already (e.g., different tabs on the Accordion menu in About Us); I'll be adding full history support pretty soon.

[Sekhar]

it's nice, but it would be good if all of the fonts would change, with your edit option.
And it is not clear that one has to first highlight the text to edit it.
really i don't go for all flash sites, your's caught my eye cause your doing a good deal of server work.
The design needs more, the fancy style fonts are not clear, also the golden bar is a bit grainy around the edges. i don't know what your SEO desires are, but that needs a touch too. It's somewhat eye pleasing, just need bigger fonts if they are going to be in that style, and also a more clear navigation.

Great input, thanks!

The thing with the fonts is that I'm embedding them, so can't really allow system fonts. I should at least remove them from the drop down though. Right now, if you select a different font, the text just disappears in a poof. Bad.

What would you recommend in terms of design/navigation enhancement? I see you're a graphic designer.

[SarK0Y]

many options are not good too; for better, you can make usual fonts to menus for MouseIn event

[kkbbcute]

Okay, a few other comments, for starters, the site loads real fast, which is a good thing. However, the curly fonts at the site are a little too italicized for my tastes and are on the verge of being hard to read.

Also, the pearls/bubbles (the ones in pink) seem to be at random and have no relation to the website whatsoever, and just seems to be an attempt to spruce up an otherwise blank page.

And one last issue is that I frankly have very little idea of what your site is actually about. ok, you empower women, but what can I do on this site? It's not immediately obvious on the home page, so that needs working out too.

[Sekhar]

Okay, a few other comments, for starters, the site loads real fast, which is a good thing. However, the curly fonts at the site are a little too italicized for my tastes and are on the verge of being hard to read.

Also, the pearls/bubbles (the ones in pink) seem to be at random and have no relation to the website whatsoever, and just seems to be an attempt to spruce up an otherwise blank page.

And one last issue is that I frankly have very little idea of what your site is actually about. ok, you empower women, but what can I do on this site? It's not immediately obvious on the home page, so that needs working out too.

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, others are having trouble with the curly font (Bickham) too, I guess I'll have to change it.

Yes, the pearls are placed at random. In fact, I'm placing them programmatically inside a skin, so you'll get a different placement each time you load/resize the page. They're meant to go with the gold/satin.

We're still working on the content, most of what you see is draft or placeholder stuff (should've mentioned that). We will certainly be expanding on the overview section.

[SarK0Y]

Sekhar, to make all things immediately is impossible, your project has quite right improving's vector. for most effective improving, get feedback from web-site's users -- this project is made to women & their opinion is decisive factor;)

[tadster]

sorry for the late reply,
since it's all flash why not use just vector graphics, that will help the gold bar,
don't know what your set up is but there are tools to turn rasters into vectors, look into that or try to sharpen the golden bar more.
Random pearls..hmmm not really needed is it? And it must take a little bit of code to pull that off.. but you should do without that.
On my first visit i did not realize that the "pearls" sections took up the left and right sides of the screen, it only gave me two pearls, one on the left and one on the right, so i thought for sure that they were something to click on.
here is a thought.. go with the scroll idea but make it that each section button is part of the gold bar, then when you click for a section you get a little unscrolling of the scroll animation to get into each section ..get what i'm saying?
for that the bar would need to be bigger, your fonts all need to be bigger, so the gold bar really could take up most of the top part of the screen, and you could just design underneath it, that would make the space seem more full.

But it's not a bad start at all.. just needs a few design twerks..perhaps with some thought you'll think of a completely better way to do it..

[Sekhar]

sorry for the late reply...

tadster, thanks again. That's meant to be intricate work on the gold bar surface. I specifically made the bar with LightWave 3D. I also feel the whole page is still a bit plain, will be playing with the design some more.

[kkbbcute]

Sekhar, to make all things immediately is impossible, your project has quite right improving's vector. for most effective improving, get feedback from web-site's users -- this project is made to women & their opinion is decisive factor;)

What makes you think that everyone here is male ;)

Anyway, a few other issues, your page title of your page is labelled "#". Name it something else.

2. You might consider redesigning your site with the logo in the top/top left hand corner, that's where the logo usually is, and make it a little larger too. The navigation should go to the top too, it feels more natural that way.

3. You might just want to put in some Lorem Ipsum text while you are at it so we don't have to imagine what the page will look like with content.