www.ena.lu/dja - Multimedia database in flash mx

Welcome, Necrite! Thanks for looking at some other sites first.

This is very interesting. Very unique way of presenting information. I'm not entirely sure, however, that this is the best way for presenting this sort of information. I'm having problems with the large amount of scrolling required to view the content. For example, the main document tree on the left side is cut off so I can't even see the full titles of most of the listings.

I'm also having a few difficulties with the academic language used on the site. Remember that people have difficulty reading on a screen. It's hard on the eyes. It might be a better idea to keep the introductory text simple so people will be able to understand it easily. I shouldn't have to read several paragraphs of text (and scroll all over the place) to understand what I'm looking at.

Another problem is some of the terminology used here. The top navigation menu, for example - I have no idea what "file" and "window" are going to take me to. Once I try to use it I see that it's operating like a windows menu system, but I didn't expect to find that on a web page.

Make sure that the mouse turns to a hand when it hovers over something that's clickable. This is another usability problem here. I don't know what's click-able since my mouse isn't changing to a hand as I would expect. I also didn't expect that I would need to double click on a heading to get it to pop up.

Oooh! I like that little flashpaper viewer. That is neat-o. Once I get to a document it's a nice way to view it. Now that I see the end result I understand the format a little better. This is a big improvement over HTML for content like this, and Acrobat which is slow and clunky in comparison. But why don't all documents use this?

Another usability problem I notice is the use of icons. Those should be explained somewhere. maybe even a part of the opening interface (as it is in the media section). At least have an icon legend as an option under the help menu. Some of these are confusing too, like the use of a globe to change language.

Overall, I think more attention should be given to usability here. You're resenting people with an unexpected navigation model. Even though they use this sort of thing all the time, it's not an expected website interface. Make it as clear as possible as to what they are looking at and how they should use it. The more I play with this the more I understand how it works. A few more efforts should be made to reduce the learning curve even more and enable users to jump right in more seamlessly.

Just been thinking about this a little more. The above is really a story of learning to use a new piece of software. Only I didn't expect to find a piece of software in a web page. This might be a good reason to use a flash intro. Start with an opening screen and a statement that this website acts like software and the intro will show you how to use it. You have to do some loading at the start anyway, so why not build in a little intro that shows people what to expect? Repeat visitors would have the option to skip.

Hi,

very good idea, i will make a presentation of the software with roboHelp or something similar and use it as a intro during the loading.

Thanks,

Necrite.

Contgratulations on challenging normal design principles. It was a joy to come across something 'different' and something which has been so well executed. I would agree with the usability issues noted above, however, I believe these are minor.

Well done and keep up the great work.