My despair deepens....
madpierre
(a) this is real, and
(b) I have received a very nice reply pointing out that what I saw was
only a beta and inviting me to the next "e-business planning strategy"
meeting.....
To: [deleted]
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 14:56:54 +0000
Subject: The "New" new website <http://[deleted]>
[deleted], [deleted] asked me to take a look at the above to see how
it displays in Navigator. I think it's really good but have a few
suggested improvements.
The scrolling news with embedded links is really good. Trying to click
on the moving links is like playing Whack-A-Mole. Very entertaining.
There is more on why I think we should use the games theme further on.
However, it takes 110 seconds to scroll through all of the latest news
and I think we are missing an opportunity to get more information
across.
Obviously we can't use the scroll as it would just take longer, so how
about Shockwave? Even if it was only 60 seconds long, we could get a
lot of information into it. I wanted to avoid saying "cool" but a
shockwave video really would be cool.
At the very least, we should have more animation. For example, we are
displaying the IBM Premier Partner logo in a big box at the top left
of the page. However, there are nearly a dozen other accreditation
logos we are entitled to display, and that's just the IBM ones. If we
added the Microsoft, Trend, Checkpoint, etc. ones we would have enough
for the box to cycle through them all at 5 to 6 second intervals.
Also, in the bottom left corner is a box that displays an image of a
randomly selected member of staff, which is great. However, you have
to "mouseover" to change it. Since we have nearly 2 minutes to play
with, could we animate it so that each member of staff gets 4 seconds
each?
This brings me onto colour. The latest graphics cards support over 64
million colours but we only seem to be using about 20 (and 17 of those
are blue).
I think we could make the page much more vibrant by using more
colours. Using colour versions of the staff photo's would help but
perhaps we could make the background change as well? We could use
javascript to make each pixel change independently, which would be
unique! Well, I did see it done once, but it was only someone's
personal page at Geocities or Angelfire and, even if it still exists,
the chances of a visitor to our site having seen it must be really
small.
Also, I found a great javascript for changing the cursor into a set
of animated juggling balls. Let me know if you want to use it.
Next, I think the navigation could use a little work. One of the
things that made the PC such a success was the ability to play games.
That's also why UNIX systems are so much more widespread than AS/400
(although someone did port Tetris to AS/400 last year). Turning the
navigation into some sort of game would "engage" visitors and get them
to spend much more time on our site (and keep them coming back, too).
I think it's called "stickiness".
I think a "maze" game would be easiest and would hark back to such
classic games as Rogue and PacMan. Not having a site map helps but I
think we could do more. I saw a site recently where the navigation
buttons were just random symbols and you had to move the mouse over
them to see where they led. Even better was that the link was randomly
generated so the same button could take you to a different place each
time. Also, the javascript errors that crash the browser, the Notes
client and Windows NT Explorer simultaneously would be the equivalent
of being eaten by an Orc!
Perhaps we could have a pop-up Java window to display the score. We
don't seem to be using enough Java at the moment.
Finally, the site has been designed for the latest version of Internet
Explorer and I think we should say so. Anyone who tries to view the
site with another browser, or without javascript, shockwave and so on
(by the way, there don't seem to be any Real Audio files - was this
deliberate?) won't get the full experience.
I think those people should be intercepted and taken to a page telling
them to upgrade or change their browser and what plug-ins they have to
have before they can come in. The image we want to create is very
important and I think that, if someone can't see the site the way we
want it displayed, it's better that they shouldn't see it at all.
I hope you don't mind the constructive criticism. The proposed site is
pretty good as it stands but I don't think we should miss the chance
to make it truly memorable.
Piers.
P.S. We seem to have nearly 180MB of log files for the old site. This
seems like a tremendous waste of space, especially if we are changing
the site. Why do we bother with logs anyway?
mp
--
Sigh. So many kooks, so few comets...
- OrionCA (n.a.n-a.e)
MegaMole
<madp...@despammed.com> writes
>P.S. We seem to have nearly 180MB of log files for the old site. This
>seems like a tremendous waste of space, especially if we are changing
>the site. Why do we bother with logs anyway?
I hope you know the answer to that, for the sake of my job... <g>
--
MM
Suzi
> The things that scare the shit out of me are that:
>
> (a) this is real,
I only wish you were kidding :-(
[Snip list of horrendous suggestions which seem to get worse step-by-
step :-(]
> Finally, the site has been designed for the latest version of Internet
> Explorer and I think we should say so. Anyone who tries to view the
> site with another browser, or without javascript, shockwave and so on
> (by the way, there don't seem to be any Real Audio files - was this
> deliberate?) won't get the full experience.
>
> I think those people should be intercepted and taken to a page telling
> them to upgrade or change their browser and what plug-ins they have to
> have before they can come in. The image we want to create is very
> important and I think that, if someone can't see the site the way we
> want it displayed, it's better that they shouldn't see it at all.
<eep>
If image is *that* important, then *please* tell whichever sales-
management-droid this obviously came from that most people do not have
these facilities, and those that don't probably don't want to download
megs of extra bloatware just to view one site!
In fact, if it will help, you can show him this reply verbatim to let
him know what a really, really, really bad and "un-cool" idea most of
the stuff he's suggesting is.
Suzi
Jan Ingvoldstad
(madpierre) said:
> The things that scare the shit out of me are that:
> (a) this is real, and
How real? To me, that piece reeks of sarcasm. The wording seems way
to good to come from someone who really wants it. :)
> Piers.
Is this the anonymous person? :)
--
In the beginning was the Bit, and the Bit was Zero. Then Someone
said, Let there be One, and there was One. And Someone blessed them,
and Someone said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the Word and subdue it: and have dominion over every thing that is.