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vangogh
08-09-2008, 02:56 AM
I think many of us have seen each other's sites or have asked for reviews in the past so until some new people get here and ask for reviews I thought we could share some sites whose designs we really like.

I came across Matt Mullenweg's blog (http://ma.tt/) recently. Matt is the guy behind WordPress and thought the design was really good. It's essentially a typical two column site with the content on the left and a sidebar on the right. It has a top level navigation across the top. Very standard, but the handdrawn effects make it interesting to me.

I like the eye candy in the header and footer, though I think the size of the header could be reduced some so the content is closer to the top. Ultimately it's the content that needs the emphasis on a blog.

The color of the links can make the text in the links a little hard to read, but I like the color and think it works with the overall color scheme.

What probably attracts me to the site the most is the handrawn paper effect around the content and sidebar. Both are becoming popular and for whatever reason I really like how the effect comes across.

What do you think of the design? It certainly wouldn't work for all sites, but do you like the look for a blog? What parts of the design stand out for you good or bad?

Steve B
08-09-2008, 08:22 PM
It is way too busy in my opinion. I don't like that so much usable space is wasted in the margins. And, the big "Play" button on the middle of the video portion makes me think it's an amateur type u-tube thing.

vangogh
08-09-2008, 09:11 PM
I wouldn't say there's wasted space in the margins. It's designed for 1024px width and the extra space is only if you have a wider monitor. If you fill up all the space it can cause problems for people with smaller monitors and a fully liquid layout comes with the problem of letting the text fill up too wide a space, which makes it hard to read. It's actually a very standard layout.

It is busy, but I think it's ok with the style given the nature of the blog. The design wouldn't work for a business site, but in this case it's a personal blog.

The play button isn't part of the design. It's just how that video was coded and again that's fairly common in some video players. The blog is just embedding the video on a particular post and doesn't have control over the button.

Steve B
08-10-2008, 07:20 AM
You're right - I was looking at it as a business site. I would have had a different perspective thinking of it as a personal site that was just done for fun. Still too busy for my taste however.

vangogh
08-10-2008, 02:01 PM
It's definitely not a business site. Way too much going on for that. I can see where it would be too busy for some tastes. It is following some recent trends in web design that I've been seeing. I'm not crazy about the header myself. I don't mind it, but I think it should be smaller so the content is closer to the top. I think reducing the size of the header would make it a little less busy too since the header dominates.

I think the whole think works well though, as a personal blog.

Harold Mansfield
08-15-2008, 09:26 PM
I listen to a lot of Dance Music , so I tend to like those types of sites.

Just for the "sweetness" factor, Ageha, a nightclub in Japan has been one of my favorite sites for a while.
I just always thought, for the type of site that it is..it was done very well. Not only that but the club itself looks pretty hot.

*Flash Warning*
Ageha.com (http://www.ageha.com)

Another site that I always liked is from Derrick May. I have just never seen anything like it before. Besides that it reminds me of home, with the photos and all.

*Music Warning*
DerrickMay.com (http://www.derrickmay.com)

vangogh
08-15-2008, 10:04 PM
The Ageha site isn't bad. I'm not crazy about Flash sites, but it's actually pretty easy to navigate and read. Most Flash sites seem to miss how important it is to actually be able to read the content so it's nice to see one that gets that right.

I wasn't crazy about Derrick May's site. All the images seem like you should be able to click them and have something happen, but nothing did for me. So it felt just like looking at a bunch of thumbnails where I couldn't see the images too well. In contrast to Ageha I had a hard time reading the content on the Derrick May site.

Harold Mansfield
08-15-2008, 10:45 PM
The Ageha site isn't bad. I'm not crazy about Flash sites, but it's actually pretty easy to navigate and read. Most Flash sites seem to miss how important it is to actually be able to read the content so it's nice to see one that gets that right.

I wasn't crazy about Derrick May's site. All the images seem like you should be able to click them and have something happen, but nothing did for me. So it felt just like looking at a bunch of thumbnails where I couldn't see the images too well. In contrast to Ageha I had a hard time reading the content on the Derrick May site.

Yeah..A lot of times Dance Music and Nightclub sites tend to be more about the style, and the attitude of the music.
They rarely are very informative other than what even is happening next.

When it comes to flash, I almost think that those are the only sites that really need it since they are not really selling anything at all on the site, it only serves as online entertainment and just enough information to get you into the club.

The more dynamic the site, the more exiting the nightclub. So those sites have to be entertaining, after all the are in the entertainment business.

vangogh
08-15-2008, 11:09 PM
And that's actually fair for those kinds of sites. I'm generally not a huge fan of all Flash sites, but I think it can be appropriate depending on your topic. Flash is for lack of a better word flashy and for things like dance music and nightclubs that makes sense.

I've seen some good uses of Flash, most of the time it's as limited applications within an html site, but I have seen good all Flash sites too. Most of the bad Flash sites have more to do with the designers than with the technology. Hard to read copy for example is still bad on an html site.

Steve B
08-16-2008, 05:13 AM
Well that was weird (referrring to my time on the Derick May site). I gave it a good try clicking on several things, but I don't know why his site exists. Is he a musician? That was indeed a very different site.

Harold Mansfield
08-16-2008, 08:50 AM
Well that was weird (referrring to my time on the Derick May site). I gave it a good try clicking on several things, but I don't know why his site exists. Is he a musician? That was indeed a very different site.

Yeah. Actually he is a Producer/DJ. He is actually the Godfather of Electronic Dance Music. He actually started what is known now as Techno in Detroit in the 80's with groups like Cybotron, and Model 500.

He, and 2 other DJ's from Detroit (Juan Atkins, Keven Saunderson) are know as "The Holy Trinity " of Dance Music.

One of his first songs, "Strings of Life", is the track that is seen as the anthem that generated and sparked modern day dance music as we know it and all of it's forms. (Trance, Techno, Ambient, Hard Core, etc)

Derrick May is actually know all over the world and is treated like royalty in that field of music.

The fact the his site is eclectic (if you will) is no surprise. So is he.

*Sorry for the History Lesson :)

vangogh
08-16-2008, 11:34 AM
I guess his site is meant more for people who know who he is prior to visiting. I knew it was music related because you mentioned it and I heard the music playing when I got there.

Still after visiting the site I didn't know anything more about Derrick May than I did before visiting the site and it didn't strike me that there was much there for people who do know him. When you visit the site what do you do there? Is there some reason to come back?

lav
08-23-2008, 02:54 AM
one of my favourites, takes a little while to load but wait for it, graphically its one of the best Ive seen.
SAIZEN MEDIA STUDIOS (http://www.saizenmedia.com/nightwish/)

vangogh
08-23-2008, 01:16 PM
It is nice graphically, but honestly that's about it. It's not easy to navigate and takes too long to load each new page.

It's interesting that the sites people are listing here are Flash sites. Flash sites often look nice, but generally they're difficult to use. A certain kind of audience will like them, but for the most part the average person on the web is going to visit and leave in frustration.

Out of curiosity does anyone have html sites they like.

lav
08-23-2008, 09:01 PM
It's not easy to navigate Im interested in which part of it you thought was difficult to navigate, to me it was pretty straight forward, a portfolio, contacts and about button at the bottom of the page and a next and previous button in the portfolio section, how much simpler could it have been?.

I think its interesting that when people are asked to post their favourite websites and Ive seen it on other forums as well that the majority that are posted are flash sites, yet people continue to say that they would prefer html sites, and even more interesting is that most of the people who bag flash are developers or web designers.... could this be because they dont like using flash themselves?

I think we should get used to the load times for now because the faster the internet gets the more graphically rich designers are making sites, I remember a couple of years ago waiting patiently for 12 minutes while a jpeg would download but these days we complain that a video or animation takes more than 60 seconds....

vangogh
08-23-2008, 11:13 PM
The poor navigation part to me is that you have to click something on the page in order to be able to click another navigation button. On the about page and the portfolio page you have to click back in order for the navigation to work again and on the contact page you have to click to close the form in order for the navigation to work.

Navigation shouldn't require you to perform an action on the current page in order to get to another one. Not everyone will figure that out and there really isn't any need for it since it's possible to have the navigation work without it.

On the pages themselves you have to close whatever object you open in order to be able to open another. Again that's not the way navigation should work.

One common problem to most Flash sites is that you're supposed to mouse over things to find out if it's clickable or not. That's fun if your playing a game, but quite honestly it's dumb if you have a business site. Why increase the chances someone won't realize what is and isn't clickable.

In the case of this one site the graphics are great and they likely have a specialized client. But to me the site is style over substance. I really don't know anything more about the company now than I did before you linked to them. And I've spent about a half hour on the site and read through all the content. At least I think I did. Who knows if I missed a link somewhere.

I think when most people think design they go right to the aesthetic. Flash sites usually have nice graphics so they make an impression. I've also noticed about people in general that what they say and what they do are often completely different things. People see a Flash site looking good and decide it must be good design, but those same people probably don't use the site.

Design is about more than good looks.

I understand your thinking about the load times, but I disagree that we should get used to it. The more broadband we have the faster we'll want things to be. Ultimately we all want a page to load before we finish clicking the button. It's true that we'll see more graphically rich designs, but people still aren't going to be happy waiting 30 seconds for a page to load.

The time it feels like it takes for a page to load is more important than the actual time it takes to load. If my page loads in 2 seconds and your's takes 5 seconds your page will feel slow. If my page takes 1/2 a second to download and your's takes 2 seconds your page will feel slow.

lav
08-24-2008, 05:28 AM
The poor navigation part to me is that you have to click something on the page in order to be able to click another navigation button. On the about page and the portfolio page you have to click back in order for the navigation to work again and on the contact page you have to click to close the form in order for the navigation to work.Like when I use this forum I have to click "Website Management" then I have to click "Website reviews" then I have to click "Share Sites you like", all this to get to the page I want, you are absolutely right why should I have to do do all that? why cant I just come to this forum and be at the place I want within one click?........:)

I still think a minute or 2 is nothing to wait if we spend an hour and a half on the site like you did, and i think if you were looking for some gaming Illustrations or a site for a game (which I worked out was their specialty by looking through their site) It would have a good impression on their target market.

Lets be realistic here If they specialised in design for the gaming industry and had a site that looked like a standard business site even if well designed would probably not have the same effect on their target market. Not all sites are about SEO and not all sites are targeted at people who have trouble navigating websites, Im pretty sure the clients of these guys would be quite net savvy and they probably have no interest in making their site nav friendly for noobie internet users. Considering they do have a HTML version of the site I would assume the site in question would be purely to show off their imagery skills.

Hope I havent started the great Flash verses HTML debate AGAIN but It intrigues me that there seems to be these standard rules that all websites need to be SEO'd and user friendly to people who arent net savvy all the time for them to be considered a good site.

P.S I have no affiliation with the site mentioned but it has made for a good example, oh and did you notice the fairy smoking a cigar, I thought that was funny I hope she doesnt have any problems with lung cancer when she's older, do fairy's get lung cancer?

vangogh
08-24-2008, 12:04 PM
I think the navigation here is different from that site. It's not about having to click a few times to get to where you want to go, but that you have to take certain actions you shouldn't have to.

Imagine on this site that when you tried to click website management it wouldn't work. Nothing happened until you first tell the home page to turn itself off. That's the situation on the other site. By the way you don't need to click website management to get to website reviews. You can click website reviews directly and even bookmark the page if you want. You couldn't bookmark a specific page on the Flash site.

The waiting part is unique to each of us. Some people will wait more and if you know you want to interact with a site you will wait longer. For my part the only reason I stayed on the site was because I was putting together thoughts for this thread. Had I just come across it I would have left long before a half hour.

I agree with you about their industry. The site actually does make sense given who their clients are. They shouldn't have the standard business site and most of what they do really does show off their ability to work within the gaming industry. I wouldn't be surprised if some of their clients aren't quite as savvy as you might think, but I do agree for their market the site makes perfect sense. Any complaint I've made is really more about general design than specifically for that site in that industry.

Notice though that I never once mentioned SEO in this thread as a reason for criticizing the site's design. I don't think every site needs SEO as it's simply one way to market your site. I was critiquing the design based on usability and I do think the site could be improved. I won't back off the navigation things I said regardless of the industry. There's no reason to make some close one page before the navigation works to get to another page.

The graphics on the site are great and I did notice the cigar smoking fairy. I think there's a spell to deal with the lung cancer so she'll be ok.

billbenson
08-24-2008, 04:33 PM
I never thought about this until just now, but I bet you could use css to put the flash page over the html page. That way, the visitor would see the flash, not the html but the search engines would see the html for seo. This would be pretty much cloaking, but if the html page was very similar to the flash content, you could probably protest any bans and they would go along with it.

vangogh
08-24-2008, 09:15 PM
HTML behind the Flash is one way people try to optimize Flash sites. I'm hardly an expert on optimizing Flash sites, but I think one of the challenges is not having it be seen as hidden text.

Recently Adobe started working a little closer with search engines so theoretically they are going to be able to index more Flash content, but it will still lage way behind what they can index of html. I think if SEO is a concern you're still better off with an html site. Either that or you need to build a lot more links into the site.

I think Flash has many great uses and done right it can be a great thing. For the most part though I think Flash designers (at least the ones I've seen) are more interested in the wow part of design and forget things like usability. Most Flash sites I've seen come across to me as more style than substance. The style is often great, but the substance is what's really more important.