College Orientation Website!

[Esquared]

Yo-

http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/first-year/orientation/2003/

I've been working on this one for a few months now, and it's FINALLY online. It's still got a few random things that need to be updated, but it is now fully operational.

Most importantly, I've implemented a (sol enabled) checklist that links to various pages and stores those you've been to, checking those you've seen off the list each time you visit. I'd really like to know what you all think of that.

Any other design tips and glitch reports are of course welcomed as well!

THANKS ALL!

[superpuppets]

Im a bit of a nit pick, keep that in mind.


- Your shadows on your photos are curved, you photos should be too ( with some shading)

- you should make your text im your menu 'non html'. Theres a small thing that looks like a <=> that will toggel that. it will get rid of that courser change what you are over it.

- i would change the mouseover form red, it dosnt really fit.

- the map could be clearer ( if you have a good original.) i cant make out the righting. If it is a file size issue, cheak out ( http://www.zoomify.com/ ) its a user controled image interface (UCII) ( i made that one up) im not sure how your dot navigational User Interface (NUI) will work. with that, so you will have to paly with it

- alignment - look at some of your menu. people read english left to right, so its a usally a good idea to line left, its easier/faster to read + faster to find somthing.

some more caracter on the pages would look sweet ( very light gray gradient some pages rolled up stuff like that.)

some color gradients isnt a bad idea eather.

thet blue is a little strong.



I hope i didnt offend you in anyway. I like the overall idea, just little things could make it better.

-- SP

[Esquared]

Thanks for the feedback, no offense taken at all. Some notes in response:

Page "character", shadows, curves: Yeah, we needed so badly to get it up, graphics kind of took a backseat. I'll tweak some of that stuff soon and see what I can do.

HTML Menu text: I'm confused. It definitely isn't selected to be HTML. I assume you mean the little button in the property inspector, right? It's already deselected. (And Ive never gotten a cursor change over it...?)

*EDIT* Ohhh...you mean the submenu items, don't you. The cursor may change over them because the dynamic text loaded into the pages MUST be HTML. The cursor changes over that if the submenu overlaps it...can't do much about that one.

Red mouseover: I agree...but I'm trying to convince my client of that.

Map: Again, little choice. I only have what they gave me as an image. The interactivity is supposed to eliminate need for the writing entirely, actually. Think I should try to edit out the text?

Alignment: I'll try it and see

Gradient, color: any suggestions for where/how to alter this?

Thanks again, and I welcome more comments! I need more!

[009]

The whole layout is not too bad. I noticed a recently survey that says 46%, design look is very important. If your piece is very important...I suggest you have to play with the trendy color a bit.

The photo of school staff is very poor in quality. If you are worried about the file size, maybe you should make that movie clip into a individual swf and load it separately.

The caption should have a white background. Ir makes you see the text clearly as you roll up

I respectfully disagreed with you on gradient color. They don't look very good on an attractive design and it increases your file size and that's bad for Flash.

Regarding the "dragging" photos. I would suggest that you make a "close button" on each photo. Give your users an option. Dragging is no fun.

When you design something, think about your user's perspective, not you. "less hassle, more fun for Your website's audience"


That's about it!

[Esquared]

Thanks for the comments!

Staff Photo: It does look horrible doesn't it. It does already in fact load as a separate .swf. When I publish and run it in Flash it looks clean though...it only gets ugly in the browers...any hints?

Captions: You mean the rollover tips on the buttons up top? That I can do.

Gradient: I had shyed away from gradients for a while actually, and only added that after the first comment on this thread. I'll get some more opinions and see what works best. You mention you don't like the color as well? In what way?

Close button: Right on. Good idea.

Thanks again.

[superpuppets]

its looking better. On your menus, i would add a "int" tyle convertion to make it look less jitery. ( _x:= int(_x) or something like that)

[Esquared]

superpuppets: Where exactly do you mean? On the submenus that slide out?

[bongbox]

i think the site is great but dont know bout the pop up window

[Esquared]

Do you just frown on their use in general? (I, for the most part, do too.)

The reason that we chose to use one in this particular case is so that it stood out from the main site as its own entity. I'm not sure how successful it will be, but I think it's pretty cool that it communicates back and forth and retains the checked items when the site is returned to.

I could have simply made a virtual popup within the flash movie, but I thought that the separate window might actually be EASIER to use, since it can be moved out of the way of the main contents but easily brought to the front by clicking the checklist button again. It of course also refocuses the main site when a link is selected, to make the selection immediately visible.

Please, if I could, I would like more comments on this feature in particular!
You guys have really been helping. I like the site even better already. Keep it coming!