Suggestions for a Flash Designer: Real World Example

[J_Paul]

Earlier this week I received a site submission I found very interesting. After reviewing the site I started typing out ideas that could help the designer. Some comments were about Flash, and were some about other design aspects. After reviewing my comments to the designer I realized that these were suggestions that many designers could take into consideration when developing sites. The comments aren't written in "article" form as this was an email, but you'll get the idea.

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I am just learning how to use Flash and have prepared my website entirely in it. Whilst the site is still being developed I would welcome your comments on the structure. I am not given to design for design sake and do not like lots of meaningless moving parts.

http://www.gq-design.co.uk

Yours sincerely
GQ

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Hi Geoff,

I took a look over your site and considering that your just learning Flash, the site is excellent. I do have a few suggestions that may help you out a little.

Loading Section:
On the loading screen I would recommend having the logo static with a percentage or bar preloader below it. Here is a tutorial to a simple bar preloader featured in FlashNewzand you can also use this component, which I use in the FlashNewz "FPS" example below.

Fonts:
Once past the intro the text looked a tad blurry to me. I would recommend using a different font. Perhaps Verdana or Arial (those are my favs).

Frame Rate:
Notice when your transitions on your images look a tad slow? If you increase your frame rate to say 30-60 fps that will make your transitions much smoother. If you'll take a look at http://www.flashnewz.com/flash/ the background transitions are all set at 60 fps.

Navigation:
When I clicked on the web design section all of the navigation text moved down by 1px. This is very nit-picky, but something that users will notice.

Logo Animation:
I would either make the logo not repeat the animation, or take the animation on that section out completely. The silhouette with the orange that rotates is what I am referring to. It tends to pull the focus away from the content.

Design Elements:
Here are a few little design elements that you may want to consider. Make the picture of the guy on the home area a puzzle piece as well. It will help make the page flow a little better.

Hidden Elements:
On the images below the navigation I noticed that when I rolled over them there was text. I personally would probably make that text visible without having to roll over it. Had I not been playing with the mouse I may have missed that.

The 1,2,3,4,5,6 at the top in the bright colors I would take out and have the text fade in and out from one to the next without having to mouse over the numbers. Something very subtle, but without the loud colors.

Ok, Ok, so I had more than just a "few" suggestions, but your site has tons of potential!

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Do you have any other comments on this design?

[cyberious]

I like the site, but it looks like he's having the same problem I'm having right now with my imported JPGs looking a bit out of sort. I don't see this on every image on his site though, just the puzzle pieces and the main images on certain pages, such as the "creativity" page. I import my images and convert them to symbols before I use them, but some look great, and a few look wrong.

What causes this to happen?

[Nargule]

Originally Posted by J_Paul

Frame Rate:
Notice when your transitions on your images look a tad slow? If you increase your frame rate to say 30-60 fps that will make your transitions much smoother. If you'll take a look at http://www.flashnewz.com/flash/ the background transitions are all set at 60 fps.

60 fps is way too many in my opinion. I understand wanting to make movement smooth and I guess the mentality here is that most people have their monitor set at least at 60hz. However, American television runs at 29.97 fps and American motion pictures run at 24 fps.

I think 30 fps is fast enough for any presentation. I will qualify this by saying I'm am not a Flash expert and my opinion is subject to change without notice.

[freddieb]

Firstly, not to detract from the design angle, I'd like to say that first of all, a tad slow on dialup. Most people won't wait more than 8-15 seconds for a site to load.

2nd, and really important, is that the major search engines now ignore Meta Keywords and look at the content, backed up by the Meta Description.

Given that the aim of most Web sites is to make money(i.e.hits=business)for the client or owner it's obviously important to get the best listing possible in as many search engines as possible.

Looking at your source code as a search engine robot would, I see nothing that I could use to list your site.

As Flash is part of your design portfolio I would suggest the option of making an index page with about 200-300 words of text content optimized to include your Meta description words, repeating about 3 times throughout, THEN have a link to your obviously well-designed Flash page.

I have nothing against Flash, I've used it on several sites, but make sure that your index page, at least, is seach engine friendly and optimized to give you/your client the best possible exposure in the search engines.

[GailKay]

If your site is intended to be viewed primarily by people in the UK then this is not an issue, but if you are targeting the customers in US you might want to change the photo of the guy on the left side of the webpage, unless the photo is a real person connected to the site. If it is a photo of someone connected to the site you might want to get a different photo.

Why? He looks eerily like Scott Peterson, currently on trial in California for killing his pregnant wife and child. He is also on the cover of one of those supermarket rags with photos of Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, and other celebs under the Headline "Stars on Trial" - not the image you want to evoke in the unconscious mind of your potential clients.

[compusolver]

You do good work!

I didn't take a long serious look, but I did find the rotating graphic distracting, mostly because it doesn't rotate smoothly. I'd try to get that loop working smoother.

Also, I think the font for the page footer should be changed to match the content font or at least to Arial.

I agree with the above load-time comments and, since no one else mentioned this, I gotta wonder if its just me, but I felt that the wheat on top of the guy's head didn't fit real well.

Still, a good looking page. Keep up the good work!