Note: I am going to post this here and in the Flash 5 forum, mainly because I don’t know if many of the irregular people check the Random forum.
This post isn’t necessarily directed towards skaters, but a skaters opinion would definately help. A friend of mine runs a skateboard company. He designs the boards and everything. They are good quality, durable, lightweight boards and I ride them as a back up when my Elements break. I am going to make his website, both an HTML version and a Flash version.
To the Skaters::
I would like your input on what you would want in a skateboard companies site. What would make you interested in the product? What would cause you to tell your friends? What would make you come back, and possibly order a board? What would you want to see in both Flash and HTML?
**To Everyone else::**
What do you think the site should look like? Color scheme? Interactivity? 3D effects? What would you like to see in a skateboard company’s site? Even if you dont skate, what would intrigue you?
The name of the company is Requiem Skateboards. The color scheme of the current site is very dark, red and black. I was thinking of livening it up a bit with different colors, but he wants to be involved too (go figure!) so he’s going to want the dark colors. I wonder if there is a way to show him that brighter colors work better…Oh well, I’ll work on that…Its very small and very localized in central New York. He wants to break out a bit and hopefully get larger, and I want to be able to help him with that. Any opinions, i repeat, <font size=6 color=red>ANY OPINIONS</font> would be appreciated.
Well, as it stand, i think the colour scheme sucks, its way too dark, I dont like dark sites unless they are gothic in style, for a skater site the colour scheme should be more indie in style, either mettalic, maroon, a bit of black or white. Try to avoid really bright colours, that way you can use bright colours to grab attention onto certain features, like special offers.
From a skaters point of view, I havent bought any skate equipment online… .but i have bought from this site - www.attitude.com.uk (i think thats the URL) and that site isnt the best, I dont really know a lot of skate shops online, they are kinda hard to come by i think.
What would grab my attention? hmm, something interactive, doesnt matter what, just something that grabs my attention that I can interact with.
Not all that helpful I know, but i dont really know =\
Very helpful thank you. Yes it sucks now, thats why I want to make it better. As for online skateshops have you tried www.ccs.com they are the major distributor of skateboard equipment in the US and I am pretty sure they ship to the UK…I’ll have to check on that one…Thanks again. I hope more than one person responds…
Well, as it stand, i think the colour scheme sucks… ** Pezdemon**
Wow, that’s kind of a harsh way of reviewing it.
I dunno, I didn’t think the colour scheme was that bad - I mean, there’s skulls all over the place.
Anyway, I agree with Pezdemon that interactivity would help catch the user’s attention. Maybe something for the pictures section?
Also, the scroll bar - especially with Windows XP (brought to you in part by Fisher Price) clashes with the colours. I’d recommend customising its colours.
Yes it sucks now… ** Jubba**
No it doesn’t. Hell, it’s better than most professional sites.
Well the original site “sucks” because it is basic and I really don’t like the dark color scheme. Its supposed to be dark i suppose, Requiem isn’t exactly the happiest word there is…But that is to appeal to the darker side of things…would you buy a deck from “Fluffy Bunny Skateboards”? lol yeah I plan on customizing everything…I didn’t make the original site (the one that you can see now)…this owner did, and he did a decent job, I just offered to make it better.
I’m pretty much going to overhaul the whole thing. I want to make some major changes. we’ll just have to see how it goes…i’m aiming for an end of May launch day, but it probly won’t be fully functional until the end of July…
Well, not necessarly. I just thought it was harsh because I thought Jubba made it and that you were just throwing it back in his face. If you knew that it wasn’t him, well, it’s not the world’s biggest sin. Nobody’s feelings get hurt.
Ok this is good but I need more than just you guys’ opinions. Lol, no feelings hurt, and I would care if it was my page… Its all constructive critism
Hey sorry about that. Its me, Jubba. I am on my roommates comeputer cuz I unhooked mine because it is a distraction. He’s just getting into Flash and he may become a regular here…
I need some more advice…I am kind of looking for Upu or Phil or Kirupa’s advices on something like this…you don’t have to skate, I just need a bit of advice on the layout and color scheme and stuff…
Ok, sorry to confuse you all. I didn’t realize that my roommate had signed into his ezBoard account. That was me. Has anyone noticed that when using this board, I get pop-up ads quite a bit? Or is it just me? Well, I unhooked the computer because of its ability to distract me so I can concentrate on studying for finals…wish me luck. I probly won’t be here to comment until Thursday or Friday so I’ll see you all then…
Jubba,
So ya wanna hear it like it is? This is phun as it is not a site that we have to be watchful of anyones feelings as it gets ripped to peices. I think the Website sucked, absolutely. Heres why;
Too dark. I don’t care if it is a site on the Holocaust. I want light. I want bright. Darkness sucks and it hurts your eyes watching it.
The color scheme goes against everything learned in Advertising class. It is just offensive to me to even surf there.
The Jpegs…Could they be any bigger? Maybe we can get those Jpegs, or Bitmaps, whatever he used and make them even bigger! Ridiculous, especially for the effects, minimal to irritating.
The load time is too long, just short of obscene for whats there. The first screen you have to wait and wait for a god awful picture to download only then to be asked if you want to skip this screen. Riduculous.
My advice would be the following;
Make it light and bright. Requiem might be a dark word, but so what? Throw some light on the subject. Break the rules. Dark sites are something that seem to remain only with the conspiracy theorists pages and the homemade ones as well. And this too will pass. Make it small, at least for each individual page. Lose the Huge werthless pictures that do nothing more than irritate the visitors.
It’s a frelling website not a political statement on the word Requiem. The site is there presumably to make a profit and sell, right? They should lose the idea of pushing darkness on the visitors. I HATE dark sites. I have found only a single dark site that I think is good. Rense/Sightings. Im sure there are others but my point I think is made.
And on top of that I would suggest something simple as this; When someone clicks on a button, a skateboarder comes flying out of the side and does a few really cool things that only a skater in flash could do. A flip, a spiral, yada. Super fast motion to emphasize effects. And the skater does this and somehow it opens up a new screen.
Well… I thought that I had made a reply to this thread. Rarely do mine disapear so it’s more likely that I got distracted while posting and didn’t click the button to submit. Sorry bout that Jubba.
I’m pretty much with Phull on this one. White sells more product than black. Always. Wait times are essential so speed it up. (I personaly didn’t have a problem with it… but I’m on dsl so if others are having problems with load time, listen to em.
Other than that… at least the navigation is easy to work… I’ve created a few where people just plain got lost trying to figure out how to get from page to page.
You’ve got some good advice above… take it and use it. It’ll work for you.
