The reason why you've never got negative feedback is because you're designing websites for people who check their e-mail, visit Livejournal sites, and use google for homework. We, on the other hand, are avid internet users. We know what we want, and how we want it. After learning what we liked and what we didn't like, we realized that an easily navigatable site with simple, but interesting visuals is a great way to back up a content rich website. You simply shouldn't make a website unless it's content based. Information websites are key to the internet.

While we may be a small portion of the internet's users, we're also the portion of the internet that use online services. Someone searching for lawn care isn't going to want to sit through 5 minutes of loading before they get to a page remotly about lawn care. They'e going to want a site that gives them what they want, right after they click the blue text that describes what they want on google. People that do like your flashy graphics aren't looking for lawn-care services, they're looking for flash games and movie websites.

Perhaps you should think about getting into flash game design?

JediKirby

I don't know why you guys think it's so slow. The animations are like 1-2 sec each. It takes me like ~40 seconds to get to the portfolio from the first click. That's not too bad if it's the portfolio I'm looking for, and the whole site is pretty much a demo anyways...

Holy crap, Obi. I'm QFT'ing you. I *never* thought I would be doing this, ever.

QFT.

They way overdid it imo. The constant flickering of the animations are annoying.
The sound effects you got everytime your mouse hovered over a link was annoying, and above all, the music was very annoying.
In conclusion: annoying.

"MY connection sucks, so clearly THEIR site sucks!"

Then it's in agreement then? This website should not be posted anymore on Massassi? You know...for safety reasons...and..well, everyone agree?

For clarification, I was talking about the animation times, not the loading times. I was running their site on a hefty broadband. The actual animation times, which contribute nothing in the way of content, are 15-20 seconds.

I thought it wasn't meant to have content, just basically be a demo of flash skills, which it did do pretty well, even though the music was a poor idea...

A demo of flash skills of this nature shouldn't be the website itself. It's one thing having a flash-based site as your portfolio (i accept it, but i'd prefer it if they were html-based), but another to go completely over-the-top. This would be better as a demo in the folio rather than being the whole site.

The purpose of his site isn't to have a lot of content, it's to show the extent to which he can manipulate Flash. He's showing off, and because of that, he's going to make a lot of money. It's a really unique way of presenting himself to customers. He had to have something that seperated his site from everyone else's. When I was watching the intro I wasn't annoyed; I was thinking to myself, "Holy freaking crap, this is awesome."

The guy is an amazing designer, and he knows exactly how to get the attention which will bring him money. He also has a lot of style to pull off a site that looks and sounds like that.

And for those of you complaining about how long it takes to get to his porfolio, I'd argue that you're looking at his portfolio as soon as you start loading the page.

Wahh my computer is slow wahh! It took too long to load for me wahhh!!! It isn't HTML! Wahhh! WAHHH!!!! I could never make anything look this good in a million years wahhhhhh! This is so amature compared to HTML!!! Music?! What is this?!!! It makes the website horrible!!! Wahhhh! It has no content even though the site serves every purpose it's meant to!WAHH WAHH WAHH WAHH!!!


Shut up. This person made something that most of us could never make, he presented it very well, it grabs peoples attention, it's showing off his obviously amazing flash, website, and musical talents..It serves all it needs to.

Why do you suck up to him so much, sajn?

The web doesn't consist solely of broadband-spoiled people with so short attention spans that they long for non-stop action on their screens, welcoming intrusion into their 'privacy' by blasting maybe unwanted music through their speakers and last but not least people with no handicaps, like impaired eyesight
etc.

qfe. That was the most awesome thing I've ever seen.

Those people are obviously not the people that he's reaching out to. It seems to me that he's reaching out to people who want to see what one can do with flash.

I fail to see what everyone is complaining about. So far, virtually every point made by the opposing side has been completely off the subject. Web standards? What does that really have to do with a guy showing off his 1337 Flash skills? Isn't it obvious that Flash isn't exactly the standard?



That doesn't really make any sense. Wouldn't that be his decision? Being able to do virtually whatever the hell you want to do, is one of the most appealing things about creating websites on the internet. He doesn't have to conform to the web-standard nazi POV to be able to put up his site, and there are a bazillion people out there that will like it all the same.

No offense, but many of you seem to have a warped sense of what the internet is all about. Just accept the fact that it might be something different, to different people. The rest of the world doesn't have to follow your standards. It just seems to me that many of you are short-sited on this very broad issue.

You just HAD to link it to nazism, didn't you?

He loses

Yeah. He loses.

Ok, here's my reason:

You don't actually have the faintest idea what this guy has focused his trade on until you've got past all the flash intros, it's not until you read the information 10 minutes in that it's confirmed that he specialises in flash-based wowfabgroovy kinds of websites. The only thing that's obvious from the first page is that he designs things for the web, unless you look at the meta tags in the source code there is nothing on the page to suggest what it is he does.

You can be accessible AND pretty. Whilst it's becoming increasibly easy to make pretty sites it doesn't mean you can forget around making the site accessible to as many people as possible. If you are choosing to target a specific group of people make it clear at the start, don't make everyone have to sit through several minutes of flashyness to tell them what you're all about.

Now that I can agree with. Thanks for stating the case more clearly.



Indeed.

I would think, Detty, that this isn't really for casual browsers. More like, he would refer a potential client to this site with examples of his work, and is in itself an example of his work. makes sense, neh?

Detty wins.

You know I actually lose marks in my web programming class for slowing pages down beyond load time.

It's just annoying when you stop visitors and force them to watch animations when the page has already loaded... I wouldn't have minded if there was a skip animation button on every animation.

He was going off your comment that someone would probably totally misinterpret your post.

I for one found it quite witty

The only instance where I can see a designer getting away with using nothing but flash for a site's design is for a feature film site. People going to the movie site probably already know what it is all about to begin with, so they need a dynamic site since movies are typically dynamic.

I gave him friendly and useful comments. Having studied design (Not from silly online tutorials) I have only this to say:

The website should be to the point. This site does not catch the eye. It is just too much for one site. The flash is not "obviously" amazing. If you understood how flash works and had a design planned out I'm sure you could to it as well.
Seriously though SAJN, you really need to grow up. "WAHH WAHH WAHH" Isnt going to get your point across seriously.

It is. The site delivers perfectly. First with a snazzy bam-bam intro, then with an explination for the intro. It fits perfectly.


Perhaps for blind people. So far this site has impressed every person I've shown it to. Obviously they must be stupid and easily fooled. TOTALLY not up to par with the amazing intellect of massassi!



I do know how flash works...so do some of my friends...they are still amazed at that website and it's intro. The thing about Flash is, if it looks simple , it proably isn't..and if it looks complicated, it proably is. For example, tweening makes things easier, but it's an assload of work! You need a seperate layer for each object, and usually you need to make everything in the animation it's own object. So a simple scene with a man walking down a street could have like 5 layers and 20 objects! Not only that, but web design with flash is very hard. Because first off all you need the artisitc talent, the time, the skills, and the graphical abilities to do so.



Seriously though MBeggar, you really need to ease up. Along with half the other people here. You people can't say 'Ohh that's spiffy'! You all need to rip every single minor detail apart! Once you can do something better, then you will have the right to complain.

The bottom line is, the majority of the people that see a site made out of flash with spiffy music and cool graphics are impressed, just because a forum full of all knowing geeks says otherwise doesn't really make any difference, because these web designers and flash experts will still be impressing millions of people and making thousands of dollars.

And might I point out that you can turn the music off. It's an added bonus if you want it, a discardable nuisance if you don't.

To be honest, I didn't bother to look at the site.

Statistically proven that if a website doesn't load within 5 seconds people get bored and move on. If that website is selling stuff, I guarantee they would sell more by removing all the flash animations.

The website is selling it's Flash skills....so by removing the flash from the site I think they'd lose money.

Ok I stand corrected.

But then again, part of what I said applies. If a site doesn't load in 5 seconds people get bored. If my site is slapped full of flash animation, it can cause people not to buy.

Im not complaining that the intro sucks. I'm saying that you are forced to watch a small intro before deciding which version of the site to pick. The 56k or Broadband selection should come first.

[/b]
Once again, I'm giving him friendly advice on how to improve his site.

[/b]
Agreed. But if you have everything organized and spend alot of time on it, you can have your own flashy website too. By the way- movie clips are helpful in flash

[/b]
Once again, I am not totally complaining. Yes I am complaining about how long certain things take, but I'm not complaining that the site sucks. Yes, it is a nice site, but it takes too long to do what it needs to do.
Oh and by the way, if I really wanted to waste my site on making a site as flash as that, I could.


You don't seem to understand that critiques are a part of everythings design. You only get better when you learn what doesnt work. Now I don't consider myself an all knowing geek, just ask Emon, but I do consider myself to be a designer.
Now if I recall correctly I gave you friendly advice on your simple flash animation a few weeks ago. This advice was simply ignored. Hopefully the advice in this thread will be taken into consideration for anyone making a website.

And for the last time- I am not trying to complain about this, so don't try and say that again.

Heh. Can't believe you registered and posted here Mr. Ben Hatoot. Anyways, I love your site. A friend showed me... it's quite inspiring (in terms of skill and dedication, etc, if not if not in 'how well it delivers the content' that JK apparently wants).

Kudos.

Yeah, I'd like to know too, I can't figure it out.

Uhh it took like 3 seconds to load, I don't know what you people are talking about. .

I guess that word that means poo and sound like spit.

Well, I just assummed the **** was hiding a slang term meaning buttocks, but then thats one too many *'s.

...and 'arse' isn't filtered.

heh, I was thinking of ***, same word different spelling.
But it doesn't need to be filtered for someone to asterix it themselves.

Good point well made sir! Actually I just asterixed a word myself in the annoyance thread!