School Help!
- Thread starter Lethul
- Start date
Thorwyn
FH is my second home
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 4,752
Zenith.UK
Part of the furniture
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2008
- Messages
- 2,913
Start with the principles on this site to identify bad sites...
Web design techniques and principles from Web Pages That Suck - learn good web design by looking at bad web design - Home Page
Then start looking up Jakob Nielsen. He's the guy that academics love to quote about website usability.
I tend to find that graphic design companies are amongst the worst culprits for poor web design, when they should be the people who pay special attention to the design.
For example...
View Creative Agency, Conwy, North Wales : design | print | web | active | e-media | branding | mobile
This opening page has acres of "whitespace" on my screen, an image of some trees and a few words that don't explain themselves clearly. You have to mouseover the coloured dots to get some swish graphic come on screen and even then it isn't explained what you're looking at. They would argue that the coloured dots match the colour of the words at the bottom, but since those words don't explain themselves, how can the dots do the same thing?
The principle thats failed on this site is the "4 second rule". If your visitor doesn't know what your site does in 4 seconds, they'll ditch it and visit somewhere else.
Another site is this one...
McKinney
Flash is not a bad tool. Using Flash for the sake of using Flash is baaaad, mmkay? This site has a Flash intro, which always makes me reach for the X button. The intro itself is banal and meaningless, and then to top it off it goes and has % loaded.
Then you get into the site itself. You think that it's neat and tidy with plenty of whitespace... ohhhh no. The text starts and this text is practically unreadable, and you have to try and work out how to slow the text down before you can start reading it.
Now this site just screams "NOOOOOOOOOO!" to me...
Freedom + Partners
Once again we have % loading in Flash, but then it goes and presents us with a new GUI. Yes, this site is in 3D! You've got to figure out how to get INTO the site to start with. The tiny text says 3D on or 2D flat. I chose 3D for shits and giggles.
WHY OH WHY did I do that?
It looks like something off Minority Report, it difficult to navigate around and just puts an obstacles in the way of finding out what they actually do for a living!
Then there's the sound in the background which you can choose from X,Y or Z. I couldn't find a 0 or OFF.
Web design techniques and principles from Web Pages That Suck - learn good web design by looking at bad web design - Home Page
Then start looking up Jakob Nielsen. He's the guy that academics love to quote about website usability.
I tend to find that graphic design companies are amongst the worst culprits for poor web design, when they should be the people who pay special attention to the design.
For example...
View Creative Agency, Conwy, North Wales : design | print | web | active | e-media | branding | mobile
This opening page has acres of "whitespace" on my screen, an image of some trees and a few words that don't explain themselves clearly. You have to mouseover the coloured dots to get some swish graphic come on screen and even then it isn't explained what you're looking at. They would argue that the coloured dots match the colour of the words at the bottom, but since those words don't explain themselves, how can the dots do the same thing?
The principle thats failed on this site is the "4 second rule". If your visitor doesn't know what your site does in 4 seconds, they'll ditch it and visit somewhere else.
Another site is this one...
McKinney
Flash is not a bad tool. Using Flash for the sake of using Flash is baaaad, mmkay? This site has a Flash intro, which always makes me reach for the X button. The intro itself is banal and meaningless, and then to top it off it goes and has % loaded.
Then you get into the site itself. You think that it's neat and tidy with plenty of whitespace... ohhhh no. The text starts and this text is practically unreadable, and you have to try and work out how to slow the text down before you can start reading it.
Now this site just screams "NOOOOOOOOOO!" to me...
Freedom + Partners
Once again we have % loading in Flash, but then it goes and presents us with a new GUI. Yes, this site is in 3D! You've got to figure out how to get INTO the site to start with. The tiny text says 3D on or 2D flat. I chose 3D for shits and giggles.
WHY OH WHY did I do that?
It looks like something off Minority Report, it difficult to navigate around and just puts an obstacles in the way of finding out what they actually do for a living!
Then there's the sound in the background which you can choose from X,Y or Z. I couldn't find a 0 or OFF.
Hay buddy,
I don't think this is a bad site per say but it could certainly do with some tarting up imo CGC - Home
Oh and I find this one way too blocky and just yeesh http://www.dcda.org.uk/
Good luck matez0r
I don't think this is a bad site per say but it could certainly do with some tarting up imo CGC - Home
Oh and I find this one way too blocky and just yeesh http://www.dcda.org.uk/
Good luck matez0r