first website advice

[gaggle]

I don't have a lot of practical experience with websites, and.. well there are many reasons you shouldn't listen to me :), I'll just offer what I always have to keep in mind when starting especially a website:

Start with the content.

I've only successfully taken a website beyond its infant stages when I had first collected and organized what kind of data was going to be shown. It may be a basic first step for everyone, or just something I need to do, I don't know, I just know whatever it takes I throw what I've got onto ugly stand-in pages and start making some basic linking. I guess I have to have boundraies to be creative within?, I can't just come up with something functional out of thin air.

Just my couple o' cents worth of ranting :)

[Obear71]

Well, first of all remeber that if your intro or intial loading page is a long one, you will loose viewers after the first 30 secs if they are still waiting. People want to get into your web page as quick as possible so find a nice balance between pazzaz and speed.

Make the navigation Obvious and simple. I see lots of really nice designed web sites with some great flash animated logos etc, but its all a rather...obscure as to how to get to where on the web site. Make sure whatever your layout, that the navigation is clear and concise.

If your uploading your work try and keep it breif, dont put up your Entire work since you was 8 years old. Find a collection of the best and most recent stuff you have done and give it pride of place. Any potential client or employer dose not want to sit thought pages and pages of your work, they just want to see what you are caperble off and thats it.

If/When you have done some work for an actual client or company make sure you give that a mention, it gives you the Experienced look.

Dont try and over clutter the site with tons of graphics and animation just because you can, keep the whole site easy on the eyes, not to BUZY and an esthtecticly pleaseing layout.

And above all make sure whover visits your site can contact you, make sure on the main page there is a e mail link etc.

The restis up to your creative talents :)

Good luck with it all

[ninjacore]

wow, thanks for the replys guys.

I totally understand what Obear 71 said. I've sat through a few portfolio sites that start of with this long winded fancy flash animation, and after about 6 seconds i usually hit the skip button, if there is one.

I also liked your point about keeping my content low and simple. Yesterday i realised i do have quite a bit. 3D stuff, 2D print work, sketches, animation, 2 short movies and a bunch of photography.

The main focus for my site will be my 3D work, becuase that is what i want to move into for employment. The thing is, its not that great compared to some of the 3d gods who frequent this site.

But anyway, i'll file your comments as research, seeing as my website is a project for uni.

any other comments are welcome.:wavey:

[DainBramaged]

If you plan on building entirely in Flash, I would recommend creating each section as a separate swf. Then use loadMovie(); to access the section when the user pushes the button. That way, you don't have to download the whole package, even when you just want to go to one particular section.

I would recommend that you avoid using the popular tiny type that is used commonly by flash designers, commonly hated by end users. I agree with the above comments about making your site accessible. If you can flowchart your site before you start working, you can make sure the user has minimal clicks to get where he's going.

Best of luck on your site.

Dain

[ninjacore]

hi

i'm now actually finished the flash site i said i would make. Its 776kb's and lookin fairly nice.

i've got webspace from coolfreepages.com and i got cuteFTP to upload my stuff.

now heres where i am stuck. I made an index.html document in Dreamweaver. In this document i made a table the same size of my swf file, and put my flash site into this. i saved and exported.

I then uploaded the html and swf to the ftp client. but in IE the loader bar only gets halfway. i can see the box where my swf SHOULD be tho. any suggestions?

heres my url www.rustyeye.coolfreepages.com
:bounce:

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