Flash Navigation

[cklaszlo]

Looking for opinions on flash navigation in large websites. We are rebuilding our site, http://www.rollercoaster.com , and want to make it much more exciting and interactive. Flash would help with this but we are concerned that not many people have it installed. Any help would be great.

Thanks,

CK Laszlo

cklaszlo@radicalzoo.com

[Nephthys]

I personally love sites that have Flash. Many companies that use Flash, however, has an html version of the site as well in case that the visitor does not have Flash. I think that you should go for the Flash approach but have your site detect whether the user has Flash or doesn't.. OR you can ask them to click on Flash version or HTML version from the beginning. Another solution as well is have the HTML version appear and have somewhere prominently displayed if they want to switch to the Flash version. In either case, you should ALWAYS have an html version.

Wow.. I hope I didn't babble on and on. I hope I helped.

[cklaszlo]

Is there a way to create the flash site with out having to creat two sites. Or are we doomed and have to create two distint sites.

-CK

[Dr. Web]

I looked over your site. Heres my 2 cents.....
You have a flash intro, which has a "skip" button. This is good, as users may want to skip the animated splash page, however-the "skip" button dissapears when the animation begins. I'd strongly suggest keeping a link to "skip" the intro there at all times.

Secondly, the main site is HTML driven, and could use an update. Its colors scheme are different from the "splash" page, so loses the effect from the splash page.

Finally, if your concerned about WHO has flash, flash has been shipping PRE-INSTALLED in Internet Explorer, and Netscape since 4.0 versions. Last report I read, had flash users at OVER 90%. You wont hit palm pilots, but your going to hit most users. You'll want to keep a HTML site handy for anyone who has a slower connection-or just wants to skip the Flash animations altogether.

[Dr. Web]

Nephthys,

couldn't agree more. Flash is great (in my opinion) but not everyone wants it. Plain and simple. Gotta have a HTML site too. And, yes...they will be created seperatly cklaszlo, as Flash is compressed file types. Not directly editable as HTML is.

[Nephthys]

Yes, either way you put it, you should have 2 versions of the site: the flash version and the html version. For example, at times while I'm at work, I have no time to look at fancy flash and want to just view the html version. If a site doesn't have the html version when I need it, I really get frustrated and leave the site. You should ALWAYS, even if the 100% of the internet users have Flash, have an html version readily available for those who don't want to view the flash version because, as Dr. Web, put it, you may have people on slower connections. There are LOTS of people still on dial-up.. it's painfull for them. :)

[cklaszlo]

I love Flash as well. I guess we'll have to start with an HTML site using Java and DHTML for navigation. Then we'll add the Flash site down the road. We are drawing over 300,000 users a month now and are doing a complete overhaul of the site. Essentially starting from scratch. We are also doing a new Splash screen. Any other tips would be great. Thanks for your infor so far.

CK

[Nephthys]

I don't know about other people, but personally, dark sites don't appeal to me. The colors presented in your site are very gloomy. I mean, there's nice black sites out there, but they have other colors as well that compliment it and take more dominance in the design.

Just my comments! :)

[Dr. Web]

JAVA. Not everyone will be keen on that. It takes a while to load up an applet, and a user can turn off java support just like that. Java support is around 85% at present.

DHTML. Looks cool, but its quite a trick to get it to work cross browser. Check out http://www.bratta.com for some good menu scripts. Netscape6 is the real culprit here, as most of the menus wont work in that browser.

You could embed a flash navigation set into the HTML page......that way it can load quick, and give some appeal to the page. Just an Idea.

[cklaszlo]

Do you have an example site of the Flash navigation set?

-CK

[Dr. Web]

sure, check out these ideas for flash style navigation, on a HTML page. Be sure to click on the screen size you want to view in, that way you can see a full view. If you want more flash links...... http://www.volcanic-design.com/volc_links.htm


http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Navigation/Simple_P-Tready_o-2557/index.shtml

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Navigation/Super_Sm-Tready_o-2586/index.shtml

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Navigation/navigati-crush74-2376/index.shtml

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Menus/Navigati-Manos_M-1885/index.shtml


http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Navigation/Compass--Tor_Dahl-1104/index.shtml

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Navigation/navigati-vonbreve-1816/index.shtml




[Edited by Dr. Web on 03-21-2001 at 07:12 PM]