Review Request : www.ifae.com/flash

nice flash, maybe u could do with abit of colour prehaps!

I'm not a great lover of flash, especially when you can do the same thing with normal html which makes it more SE friendly and also accessible to more people, but that's a personal thing!

It's nice enough but a bit bland and dull looking and the drop shadows give it a dated feel to me. It certainly could use a bit of spice to bring it life a bit more.

If you click on one of the events which takes you to a separate website it should open in another broswer window. I clicked on one and then wanted to go back to your site and had to wait for it all to load again which is slightly annoying.

Lastly I think that it should all fit at 800*600 without scrolling.

I'm not a big fan of flash sites either. I don't think that building full sites is really the best use of flash. Granted, I have a flash site, which was also made as a school project. I really do regret doing it that way though. It's such a pain to update! In three years I've never gotten around to doing a major upgrade just because it's so inconvenient.

What you've done with the map on the "directions" page is a good example of how Flash can improve the user experience. It would be a good idea to offer a printable map as well. I should also be able to click on the map to zoom in. That's how most online mapping tools work IME.

Another thing that confused me here is how your scrollbars are lighter in the back and dark for the dragger thingy. The default set up is usually the opposite.

As for the overall design, I'm not entirely keen on the grey scheme here. It seems rather dull. For an Art and Design fair I would do something with more of a gallery feel. Get some nice photos to illustrate, and keep everything else very stark.

Make sure you change your page title. It says "newopening_V3" right now.

I like it but I'd probably like it a little more with some colour. Nothing over the top but some accents somewhere.

Music off option - Good!

Quote: If you click on one of the events which takes you to a separate website it should open in another broswer window. I clicked on one and then wanted to go back to your site and had to wait for it all to load again which is slightly annoying.

Ditto on this. More than "slightly" annoying to me. The intro is a little dull and pointless actually.

Once past the intro, I have no idea what IFAE stands for... or is it IAFE (who designed the logo?). Perhaps you could work in the full name in the space above the navigation?

Instead of the intro just appearing and being wiped away, perhaps have the logo and title "drift" up to their proper postions while the rest of the interface loads? I'm no Flash designer so may not know what I'm talking about

If I ever do take the plunge, I can only hope that my first attempt is half as good as yours.

The intro seems too long and slow. I am not a big fan of flash intro's - most don't seem to serve any purpose. Once on the main page, I do like the way the menu works. Like many of the others said, I prefer more color, but the site is nice, clean, and easy to view.

I especially like the way your maps move and recenter based on the selection.

Overall, I think the site is very nice. Great work.

if the page loaded immediatly, it'd probably look much better. long intros tend to detract from the overall quality of a site. quicker loading on the sub-pages might be a nice feature, too.

the music on/off is VERY good, as it happens immediately... and i like how the menu links bounch slightly before resting. excellent site!

Flash & framesets!!! Argh, you really aren't interest in SEO for the site are you?

The new photos are good but it's still too grey and dull for my liking.

I can't view either of the flash layouts, just get a blank white page with scroll bars (on 800x600), doesn't give me option to download the flash player either (not that I would)

The html version seems fuzzy, the small text makes the banner and link buttons seem fuzzier.
You also need to use the width and height tags on your images, with 56k it's very jumpy as it loads.
You also need a way back to the index, a home link or something
viewed in firebird (mozilla)

Well based on the input I received from this forum and others I completely changed our site around. Please take a look at this version of the site. Since it is almost a completely new version, I figured I should start a new thread for it.

I pruned down the links, spaced out the content, and adapted a more dynamic code base. Please give me your honest criticism.

http://www.ifae.com/flash/index1.html

System requirements:
Flash 6 Player
1024 x 768 desktop resolution

Thanks again, you guys are my best asset! The people I work with won't criticise my work, because they dont' want their work criticised.. go figure

webG

Threads merged.

Don't have a lot of time to critique right now, but this looks better. It might be a good idea to expand the title tag a little bit. Including more information there would be helpful for search engines and those of using tabbed browsers (the shorter the title, the shorter the tab). Also a good way of giving the user more information (i.e. what does IFAE stand for, anyway?)

Eloquent...and a very nice use of white space. WOuld suggest making the fade out a lil slower with the first screen. LOVE the drop down effects.

I'm surprised to hear so many responses that didn't like the format, design, colors or flash. I thought it was beautifully designed, very appealing, contemporary, and elegant. I don't even mind the dull gray color or soft background music.

Normally, I think flash is annoying and hate background music. But in your case, you have managed to balance glitz with functionality and 'bells & whistles' with appropriateness.

Excellent site.

Not bad for the first time.
But menu moving under mousepoint is not very comfortable, IMHO

And musik.... It is very nice, but when I opened tour page I was listening "Prodigy" and was very surprised with new sounds Maybe somebody likes music on sites.... I like this things separately