Flash website critque - Graphic Design Forums: UK forums for graphic designers

simplepop · 07-02-2009, 06:21 AM

Just looking to get some critque on my site, Flash isnt everybodys cup of tea, but my portfolio is content managed with my own built flash CMS, and thanks to recent breakthroughs ala google, flash is now search engine freindly (if done correctly)

www.simplepop.co.uk

I like the looks of this forum and im sure youll see plenty more of me, thanks for looking, comments very much welcome!

Boss Hog · 07-02-2009, 07:43 AM

Hey Simplepop

Welcome to the forums

As mentioned on my other thread, you have a nice flash based website but where is the indexable content? When I view the source I see nothing but code, am I missing something?

chris_17 · 07-02-2009, 10:49 AM

Design wise it looks quite nice, however I can't see any reason for using flash rather than HTML, just because it makes fancy animations isn't a particularly good reason IMO. If a customer with a slow internet connection tries to get on and it takes ages to load they'll just leave, I can't see why the content area is so small, and there is a massive white area at the top.

Most things on the site could be done with HTML and Javascript.

I don't like Flash, can you tell?

simplepop · 07-02-2009, 02:01 PM

mmm, i can tell., and i must say it does bug me when people so blatantly go "why use flash", well i would of thought thatd be obvious.

Im a Flash designer, i do work and everything flash. so...Having a CSS website might make sense for the bog standard allrounder in websites, but i aim to pick up work using flash and expect to recieve jobs working in flash.....If i was to use css for my site...id be missleading my clients right, or not advertising myself aswell as icould....

so..yes...thas why flash has been used....

oh and regards to the index'd content, you see with flash in modern day terms, google spiders and cravwlers are ablet o dive into your flash content, and take away with it, all your text thats loaded into flash, and even the links your flash buttons link to. Research up on SWF object.

Thanks..

DougBarned · 07-02-2009, 03:00 PM

I don't like flash either... But point well made in your defence :)

I like the site a lot! Some points:

Text hard to see/read on contact page (bits on the left that turn blue) unless moused over.
Home page doesn't seem to load until you click on Home.
Don't like Th'is Simplepop (this is?) but that could just be me liking proper English :)
Page doesn't expand fully if needed - see attached image, left hand side.
You have 9 code errors.

But I do really like it... even if it's done in flash :p

simplepop · 07-02-2009, 03:11 PM

Thank you!

Regards to the links that turn blue on the cotact page... i wasnt so sure at first i wanted to have the links there...so in the end ive decided to keep that subtle..for now anyway. I was thinking of adding in a "leave a comment section" (mostly to display the flexibitly of flash, and i was eager to hand build one from scratch using my new ..mm...bits of script) But, i dont think i will.

I dont think i will chance the size of the text on this website, i might actually look into finding a new...easier to read pixel font, staring at the screen with a large body of text and small letters does hurt your eyes.

And the 9 errors, mmmm...there actually beyond me, i know actionscript inside and out, and right now the sites being optimised for search engines. so, i think my only quibbles with W3C are just technicalities....

DougBarned · 07-02-2009, 03:37 PM

You mean it's actually being worked on for SEO right now? If not, I don't mind fixing your code quickly for you... but it's always good to read W3C yourself to gain the understanding and fix it yourself.

I didn't actually mention the size of your text. I was just pointing out that when my browser is maximised (1920x1200) then the background doesn't correctly go all the way to the left edge.

I kind of like the leave a comment idea - give your customers a chance to leave testimonial?

Maybe you could just make the grey a little lighter on the contact page links as they are very hard to even notice.

simplepop · 07-02-2009, 04:00 PM

Ah thank you!!, i didnt actually notice that the background didnt stretch all the way across, i thought i had all screen sizes coverd! lol some people are greedy on all those extra pixels with there screen size ( i know i am)

But, it did make me think about how tiny my site looked sat there in the middle.....mmm

Well, im taking my steps into going through some new ways of SEO, Ive used SwfObject, which allows spiders to crawl through my swf files. And it also allows a space for "alternative content" which is standard html, and only shows up as a fail safe when flash isnt avalible, by standard this information is Search engine freindly. (BUT, ive not put in the content for the alterntive text, as im waiting for more spiders to test my swfs, search engine freindlyness, without the alternative content kicking in)

Btw, i actually totally agree with you on the clicking of the home page, so i just changed it. Orignally, i was going to have a ..."quick preiview" of my work. But starting up streight from the home page seems quite nice anyway....and i could still put the preivew on here..

Oh and i couldnt tell you how much id appriciate the fix on the 9 errors! I noticed the the other day, but ive always got so much i want to do and try out - first off, im gonna change the colours for the freinds link, this is what crituqes are for. and, then i think im gonna have a good play around in making my own homebrew comment box.

DougBarned · 07-02-2009, 04:25 PM

This should do the trick for you (hopefully):

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">

<head>

	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />


	<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
	<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/ico" />

	<title>Simplepop - Joe White - Motion/Graphics/Website/Design 2009</title>


	<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript">
		var flashvars = {};
		var params = {};
		params.play = "true";
		params.menu = "false";
		params.quality = "best";
		params.scale = "noscale";
		var attributes = {};
		attributes.align = "middle";
		swfobject.embedSWF("index.swf", "myAlternativeContent", "100%", "100%", "9.0.0", "expressInstall.swf", flashvars, params, attributes);
	</script>

	<style type="text/css" media="screen">
		html, body, #containerA, #containerB { height:100%; }
		body { margin:0; padding:0; overflow:hidden; }
	</style>	

</head>

<body>

	<div id="myAlternativeContent">

		<a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
			<img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" />
		</a>

	</div>

</body>
</html>

This ones for free

but you should probably get to grips with these basic bits - NO upper-case tags in XHTML Strict doc type and NO style elements inside your body tags.

Just out of interest, does SWF Object cater for accessibility issues as well as SEO optimisation in flash sites?

simplepop · 07-02-2009, 04:39 PM

I owe you big!

And will take the advice and remeber it, Its rare for me to being using dreamweaver, even at the most complex of times its only usually to embed a page into flash, and with other more strict CSS jobs, ive usually shared them before with a freind of mine.

But, im aiming to get this site up to 100% and this forums prooving to me a great help so far! i will definatly stick around.

Well, SwfObject, is one of many ways to help with SEO in flash, right now at the moment, i have room for 3 difrent methods which will help with SEO, but its really not my main area of work, and learning lots about it everyday. got a few things to read which focus in on flash and search engines, so i will let you know the sucess's, but through previous experince....

A flash site, with content pulled in through XML, will work really well with search engines.

This time around, im using text files. (strange yes) but theres good reason, they allow a oddly felexible approach to storing and chaning content of all types. But, for now, its the early stages and its actually looking suprisingly good.

Lastly, before i run away and boast about my new W3C standards complicancy. The accessabitly issue, mm with flash, and the right methods, all the issues can be solved, usually in much more interactive ways. its just. most flash websites, dont even get started on this sort of thing....

And alot of html website, are accessible as standard. Personally, i feel flash it just misused, abused and misunderstood.

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