Hello,
I'm wanting to release this new site beginning of the year. Would appreciate any recomendations to the design and use of flash.
Site at: www.cbr-sme.com/new-site

Thanks Richard

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Richard Hoehn

www.cartridgecharity.org
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Nobody told me it couldn't be done,
so I did it.

I really liked your new site. I thought it was clean and well designed. I liked the colour scheme, and your images are all clear and show off your products well. There are just two things that I would comment on. Firstly the loading time seems a little long for the first flash movie. I like the fact that you keep your customer informed with the preloader, but I feel you could possible optimise the images a little further to get the file size down.

Secondly I feel that all your links should be the same colour. I noticed that some are blue, some are black and some are based on images. I think you just need to standardise what denotes a link on your site - it helps us as visitors recognise how to navigate your site.

Other than these two very minor points I think the site looks great.

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Pretend I'm a potential customer - when it takes nearly 2 minutes to load anything on the first page, I'm bored and gone. It did take about 2 minutes to load what was a VERY large flash. Not necessary. Cool, yes, but not necessary - give me the option to skip, or optimize it. I had to use a different computer/browser to see it as I don't allow flash in this browser.
I guess I'm learning myself not to use fanct techynology for technologies sake. Use it when there is purpose. All I'm saying is - step back, reevaluate, and if you still belive you "need" it, make it small in file size, and smaller so it doesn't take up nearly the whole screen (keeping in mind most of the world is still at 800x600 resolution)
I guess I was expecting the images that changes when I moused over choices to reflect the choice, instead, they simply showed more "equipment", not related.....

Your flash has an EXCELLENT statement about your company (Home to the world's most........etc.) too bad the search engines will never see it - it's only in the flash.
Put it in text - so engines can see it, so people with disabilities who use your site can hear it read to them. (using only flash and images totally leaves out a large segment of our world - those with visual impairment - many use software that reads the site to them. Some use their own style sheets that force larger type/fonts. This can't be done if it's all in flash and images)

You need in your head section:
Title
Meta description tag, this text is often displayed in search results.
Meta keywords tag - not used by most SEs but still worth putting in there.
If you want to be found, remove the text from images and put it into text - so Search engines can find and index it, and so others can more easily access it. Put important headings in <h> tags, like <h1>the most wonderful supplier of this great stuff</h1>
Then subheadings
<h2>ink</h2>
a paragraph with stuff about ink
<h2>machine to put the ink in</h2>
another paragraph or 10 with stuff about that equipment
<h2>test equipment</h2>
stuff about your test equipment

The width of the page itself isn't bad. It's broken into logical sections - columns, good.

Hope at least a teeny bit of this helps.

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Shadows Papa
From near a small town in central Iowa, USA
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Thank you both for your critique!
You are both right with the Flash, im actually thinking about somehow making it smaller (kb size). I was using flash because I can show alot without having to change pages.

A question? Do you like a button on Flash that gives the option Broadband or Modem? I have never really liked that but it might be a must with this site?
Thanks again for your comments

Richard

__________________
Richard Hoehn

www.cartridgecharity.org
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Nobody told me it couldn't be done,
so I did it.