A Wolf's Howl

2 final links with usability problems

agilious — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:28:53 +0000

http://lfc.ab.ca/ My father suggested this to me as a poorly designed site. Upon investigation, I agree. First of all, there is no clear indication on the home page as to where exactly you are–there is no title making it clear that you are visiting the Lethbridge Folk Club main page. Also, the links tend to be rather unorganized and scattered. There is a large link in the middle of the page that seems to just be floating there, and no distinct menu from which one can select the other links. Rather, they are just simply listed in a seemingly random order. There is also a problem with the site’s description as the text line width is not limited. On a large monitor and a maximized window, the text runs from one side all the way to the other, making it hard to read.

http://www.msy.com.au/ is arguably one of the worst designed sites. As a user I didn’t even know where to begin. There seems to be no visual structure to the site–every icon is just floating in one large cluster. It’s nearly impossible to read any of the text due to the in-your-face colour scheme that makes legibility a big issue, not to mention how it is all cramped together. There is no organization for the links and navigation is a huge problem. As a business, MSY should probably reconsider their website design if they wish to be taken seriously by any semi-compentent consumer browsing the web.

More links

agilious — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:41:11 +0000

2 links with design/usability issues

Earlier this year the U of L refurbished its website. It does look a lot more spiffy, but I found a problem when trying to locate some familiar locations. On the old format, it was quite easy to find the list of class websites–a useful local for a student. One simply had to hover over the “Current Students” tab to see the link. With the new homepage, however, I see no such link and have to first go to the notice bord so that I can find the class websites. This has resulted in what I see as a usability issue with the new design.

http://www.loserkids.com/ is a site that is overall very well designed and polished. However, there are problems when it comes to actually ordering a product. When browsing things like shirts and hoodies, there is no apparent button allowing one to say “I want to purchase this” or to add it to a shopping cart. After a few value minutes of my browsing time, I firgured out that you must first choose a size before the button to add the item to the shopping cart even pops up! The usability problems don’t end there. When ordering, one is prompted to put in their personal information–address, name, payment info, etc. Once complete, on clicks the button “Next Step” and nothing happens–the page asking for your information is simplyl refreshed and all the time you spent putting in your name and such has gone to waste as the spaces are now blank!

2 more technical resources

I found this site when asking google how to deal with buttons in flash. I found that it was very useful for describing buttons, even though it doesn’t have any videos. I also realized there are multiple pages and that each page covers a distinct topic, which makes it easy to follow. It also features large orange buttons that say “Click to view result” which shows just what you think it does.

http://library.creativecow.net/video-tutorials/adobeflash is a site with an overwhelming amount of free video tutorials for almost everything–flash, dreamweaver, photoshop, dreamweaver, etc. I like it because it is straight forward in that all the videos are streamed and a polished fashion, and the selection of videos on the site is easily seen just to the right hand side. It also allows you to refine the category of videos by searching for specific keywords that you might be looking for.

2 site I’d like to know more about

While having been introduced to Adobe Flash, sites like these still inspire awe in me. The polished interactivity of moving the horse around on the map is really magnificent–I would like to understand how one goes about to begin designing that!

Along similar lines, http://www.speakvisual.com/#/spotlight leaves me wondering how the heck they made their site. Not only does each cube featuring a person move in response to one’s cursor, but the people in each cube are animated and moving around.

2 sites that inspire me visually

I really like http://www.soapshoes.com/ for its visual appeal. It is pretty clean and most of all is it easy to navigate. The consistent colour schemes (depending on which tab you’re exploring) help to keep you from getting lost. Also, the abstract imagery of the person wearing the shoes in active stances provides a good motif and feel to the site.

Perhaps my favourite visual site I’ve ever encountered is http://waterlife.nfb.ca/ . The site features information about a film involving water and its importance. The site if a great visual feast as the majority of the screen is taken up by graphics. Also, everything seems to move as you click or hover over it–there is always something going on that will keep the eye entertained.

Going Mobile

agilious — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:42:14 +0000

http://newmedia.sfa.uleth.ca/~ayers/documentation/ is a link to my documentation page for assignment 4.

Links of All Sorts

agilious — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:06:16 +0000

2 Technical Links

I was thinking it would be good to have a reference in regards to image compression for web and I found this. This site gives a good description of what each image file type is and how it can be used to one’s greatest advantage. It also gives a good basic history of some of the file types as well as future image file types that we might expect to see soon.

I was also hoping to find some videos that were quick and easy to refresh on basic dreamweaver stuff. This is one of the sites I found and liked. The videos load quickly and are short.

3 Visual Links

One site that has always inspired me is a weird, interactive, expressive page by my favourite band, Tool. http://www.dissectional.com/ offers an escape into the artistic world created by the band. With most of the screen entirely in black we are sucked into the center and forced to explore the beautiful, strange, and sometimes scary images.

A site that many would say lacks visuals is http://www.volconvo.com/forums/ . I agree that there is not much to look at, but think that that is the best thing going for this site. I’ve long been a member of the forum and have always loved just how simple and easy this site is for the eyes and to navigate. Its lack of visual clutter and consistent colour scheme makes this site a visual inspiration to me. Often simplicity truly is all that is needed.

I think http://www.adobe.com/ is a really good work of visual attraction. It is quite simple and easy to look at, and gives me a feeling of “smoothness”. It looks very, very modern and inspires me in terms of how sites can look.

2 Sites I’d Like To Know More About

http://dredg.com/ Is a link to one of my favourite band’s main website. On the home page there is a series of letter stamps that rotate depending on where your mouse is and they also play music bits when you click on them. I really enjoy this feature–it makes the site feel very modern and fun to play around with. I would like to know more about how this feature was made.

Another band website that intrigues me is http://aperfectcircle.com/ . I think the site is extremely well designed, simple, and easy to navigate, but the part that I want to know more about is the home page. Every time it is reloaded there is a new picture! I’m sure there is a simple explanation to this but I certainly would like to know how it is done.

Assignment 3

agilious — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:00:37 +0000

Here is a link to assignment 3:

http://newmedia.sfa.uleth.ca/~ayers/CSS_3pages/index.html

Technical Resource: 1 of 5

agilious — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:28:10 +0000

http://reference.sitepoint.com/css

The above is an easy to navigate reference for CSS properties/tools. It is a nice, clean site and the information gives a good description of what each element does. Although there are no videos, the site is a good place to quickly look up the function of a certain property in CSS.

Web 2.0 and Beyond

agilious — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:51:27 +0000

I think I speak for everyone when I say I am awestruck by Google Maps’ new addition, ‘Google Streets’. As technology exapands it seems the world is getting smaller and smaller as we are all connected in a web of communication and new forms of socializing. Google Streets is yet another chain in the link uniting the world with Web 2.0, and I am definitely interested in the technology used to make it possible. From Oxford, England to the middle of the Outback, I suspect that sooner than later we will be able to creep every part of the paved world with a 360 degree camera.

As a new media student, and part of the new technological adapted generation, I think Creative Commons will be a major player in how media of all forms is shared and experienced by the world. While the debate continues about copyright issues, Creative Commons will allow the sharing of ideas to proceed, and the innovation of new ideas to flourish.

Social cloud sites with Facebook-like inspiration (Flickr, Delicious, etc) are an ever-expanding method of sharing, and can only leave me wondering about what will come next. Web 3.0 will certainly be the version my generation will be working towards, and from the looks of it, Google Wave is a good first step.

Assignment 2

agilious — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:15:05 +0000

Here is a link to my new experience:

http://newmedia.sfa.uleth.ca/~ayers/newexperience/

A Site of Intrigue: 1 of 5

agilious — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:00:06 +0000

While I’m on a blogging role, I figured I would share a site that I have always loved: http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/

Back when Google still had the “I’m feeling lucky” feature (where it would send you to a random webpage that your search would yield) I typed “guy” and ended up there. Years later, I still remember playing the pointless yet extremely fun game of “Fly Guy”. As a rookie website creator, I don’t have any idea how one makes a site such as this. I enjoy the interactivity, the simplicity of the game (and the site), and the artwork used–Learning how to create something like this would be pretty cool.

A Site of Poor Impression: 1 of 5

agilious — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:43:30 +0000

It’s been a while since I lost my blogging virginity, so I figured it’s time I start to try and post more regularily. While I was surfing the web I came across this site. Even for the most primitive user, it’s easy to see the poor construction and design of this website. The Homepage looks quite unprofessional as it has a very awkward positioning of the site’s title, “Hoodoo Martial arts”. The “History of Our Club” page proves to have spelling mistakes as well as no white space between text and image. When investigating the “Instructors” page, all we get is a small picture of their faces edited onto hand drawn figures. The calendar is really hard to read and comprehend, the S.A.M.M.A information is outdated by 6 years (which makes one wonder if the rest of the information is still accurate), and the “Email Us” and “Tom Greenway” links don’t work.

I’ve been looking into taking Tae Kwon Do lessons for some extra exercise and because I’ve always been interested in martial arts. When compared to its competitors, Hoodoo definitely looses the battle of attracting me with their website.