I agree with the points that Alan makes here with the exception of the last
portion. I think that almost any web site could be made better (including
usability) without sacrificing aesthetic appeal. Sure, there are a lot of
sites out there now that have "meaningless eye candy" introductions in Flash
but I think Flash has its place for making sites more interactive AND
"intuitive".
This all relates along the lines of the ongoing challenge of trying to
develop a kickass site which is both pleasing to the eye, incorporates
strong reusable code, but not at the expense of getting to market quickly.
This was also the subject of my original post (before it went tangential;),
which inquired about incorporating Flash with a strong application language
(like CF).
Macromedia is now hosting a Flash design contest which is stressing the
importance of usability
(http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/special/designasite/). I think
this is a great step in the direction of advancing design, programming and
usability unilaterally.
Of course, this is all just my opionion.
Shane Witbeck
-----Original Message-----
From: McCollough, Alan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 11:53 AM
To: Fusebox
Subject: RE: Flash, Harpoon, Balthaser
Haha, go ahead and look at the site. The folks at NIH did not have an agenda
to drive; they have no behind-the-scenes interest. Now, if the study was by
Macromedia, or Microsoft, or any industry player, sure, you would be right
to look at the study with a grain of salt. The folks at NIH simply wanted to
study how users interact with web apps.
And understand, the studies they did focus on -usability-, not popularity.
If 20% of your audience doesn't "get it" and never clicks on some funky
spinning Flash animated object, is that an acceptable loss of user
participation? Perhaps it is, if your audience is more of the techno-savvy
crowd. I think shockwave.com is a good example of this. The whole point of
the site is to showcase Shockwave technology. Its supposed to be flashy.
Besides, where else can you play the original Spy Hunter for free? The
website for the US Postal Service, however, ought to be designed to be brain
dead easy to use. If I want to find out the ZIP+4 for a particular address,
I don't need to see a 3-D spinning mailbox or something like that. Gimme a
plain-text interface that is obvious and is intuitive.
Alan McCollough
Web Programmer
Allaire Certified ColdFusion Developer
Alaska Native Medical Center
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean Renet [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 11:41 PM
> To: Fusebox
> Subject: Re: Flash, Harpoon, Balthaser
>
> Alan, you could print "your mom just died call your dad" anywhere on a web
> site that looks like yahoo and no one would ever see it.
>
> In my life I have been a chemist and a VP of marketing/promotion for 4
> major
> record labels and I can tell you, you can spend any amount of money on any
> test and make it come out the way you want. The fact is that consumers
> are
> sheep and you dictate to them what they can and cannot do as much as what
> they like or dislike. Its why VHS is in your home, while BETA is used in
> the studio, its also why you know who the Backstreet Boys are, but
> probably
> have never heard of the Trashcan Sinatras.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "McCollough, Alan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Fusebox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 9:52 AM
> Subject: RE: Flash, Harpoon, Balthaser
>
>
> > Ahh, but is it actually usable by the audience? I had the good fortune
> to
> > attend a conference recently where the speakers were folks from the
> National
> > Institute of Health, and they have spent a wad of $$$$ on usability
> testing.
> > The real kind of studies, where they videotape joe shmoes and watch
> their
> > ape-like attempts to navigate various websites.
> >
> > The results of the study? Pretty wild. Basically, it boils down to this:
> >
> > Users don't know to click on ANYTHING unless it is colored blue and
> > underlined.
> > Users understand plain text
> > Users understand standard browser Submit buttons
> > Users don't understand fancy-schmancy pretty-boy buttons
> > Users do not understand frames
> > Users like it plain, plain plain!
> >
> > The most "usable" site styles are those in the Yahoo style, with plain
> text
> > links that cascade down to more refined text links.
> >
> > If you wanna see the details, go to www.usability.gov , and see some of
> your
> > tax dollars (That's U.S. tax dollars, so you Europeans get to sponge
> this
> > info for free!) at work.
> >
> > I found a lot of encouragement in this study. And why? As a CF devleoper
> who
> > works with Studio, I've found that form follows function in a big way.
> The
> > natural result of "command line" coding versus "GUI" coding is that
> stuff
> > ends up a bit stark. Quite serendipitious, actually. Those "boring"
> pages
> > displaying stuff in a straight table , using basic HTML, turn out to be
> > right up the usability alley. All that flash stuff, well, heh, poof!
> >
> > Alan McCollough
> > Web Programmer
> > Allaire Certified ColdFusion Developer
> > Alaska Native Medical Center
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Toby Tremayne [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 2:29 PM
> > > To: Fusebox
> > > Subject: RE: Flash, Harpoon, Balthaser
> > >
> > > doesn't that suck? You pull of something really clever - and it's
> only
> > > really sexy to a fellow geek. But if you have any kind of artistic
> bent
> > > and
> > > write great flash - everyone thinks you're great....
> > >
> > > ....grumble grumble... <grin>
> > {redacted}
> >
> >
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at
http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
