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What do you think about the Flash navigation bar? [rockpub.com]
And actually, if you didn't tell me it was a nav bar, I wouldn't have even tried to click it.
-G
EEWWW! It's making my eyes bleed!
That's nasty. I've seen a couple other web sites with a similar nav and it always threw me for a loop.
I figure most folks have enough trouble with simple nav let alone a moving slide that speeds up and slows down. My mother, God bless her, is finally online and I guarantee she wouldn't know what to do with that.
My mother, who would probably smack me for talking about her that way ;) , has been online for quite sometime, and still wouldn't know what to do with that...
I thought it was kinda fun, trying to figure out exactly how to toy with the momentum... but it makes for really lousy navigation.
Off to find more interesting and extremely useful navigation aids
A must see.
Tasteful, elegant and somewhat practical. Almost has an "aire" about it [fragrance.org]
There must be some people who don't like intros? [skipintro.com]
Apparently, they haven't seen those ads about not using the power just because you have it:
[marvel.com...]
Why dont you just switch to text only browsers?
And that first one with 500 thousand lines of text was a nightmare...(but I'll bet spiders love it..)
And I acutally liked the skip intro site...but only once.
-G
"Incredibilitiness"??????
What's Blippy smokin?
I would like to build one myself based on the input from here at usability central.
So far:
1.The navigation bar shouldn't be harder to catch than your cat.
2.Shouldn't be harder to decipher than your doctors handwriting.
3. Should have a hint of good taste.
4. Should load quicker than the average Geocities picture gallery.
5. Should fit into the web site theme without overpowering it.
Anything else?
It would have to be some kind of navigation design that took advantage (somehow...?) of the vector gfx/animation features of Flash. Otherwise, there's no reason to use it.
How the heck could you do a vector graphic-based, animated navbar that wasn't 10x as annoying as a normal HTML navbar? Heck if I know...
I thought the accelerating, horizontal-scrolling, acid-trip menu was nifty, so maybe I'm not the person to ask! ;)
HA HA yeah right Mivox, I still have 2nd generation browsers visiting my site!
1) Cross Browser support
2) Cross Platform Support
3) Quicker to Download
4) Can look much much cooler
5) Can scale to fit any screen size
6) Can actually make your site look more interesting (rather than dull and boring plain jane HTML)
7) Gives designer more creative freedom
8) No need for pages of complex Java/CSS/DHTML
Because I'm there to read Spidey's adventures, not to spend 10 minutes downloading and another 10 figuring out how to operate the thing. It's nice that they've finally got the actual comic part downloading 10-20 times faster than it used to, at least.
> 1) Cross Browser support
Of course, a simple set of HTML links would work on even more browsers.
> 2) Cross Platform Support
Same here.
> 3) Quicker to Download
Quicker than HTML? Not even close.
> 4) Can look much much cooler
Good for attracting newbies, but it seems like more experienced users are tired of it.
> 5) Can scale to fit any screen size
Just like HTML.
> 6) Can actually make your site look more interesting (rather than dull and boring plain jane HTML)
Or much more annoying and confusing. I guess it all comes down to the purpose of your web site. I wouldn't mind odd navigation schemes if my purpose in visiting the web site was to check out odd navigation schemes. But when I'm looking to actually *use* a site, the best navigation is navigation that doesn't stand out from the pack.
> 7) Gives designer more creative freedom
Sure, but that only matters to designers. When I'm browsing the web, I'm more interested in how I, as a user, am affected.
> 8) No need for pages of complex Java/CSS/DHTML
There's no need for complex navigation code even without Flash.
I don't mind sites using Flash as long as I never notice that's what they're doing. If I notice it, something's gone wrong.
when I said HTML navbar I was actually assuming some GIF usage with rollovers and NOT pure HTML otherwise I would'nt have mentioned java script etc.
In fact, if I don't first do a search, then I look for the thing that says "site map" and hope for plain html links.
If you have to use flash, don't use it for navigation...use it for other things.
-G
Why would you have to figure out how to naviagate? I really dont understand some of the comments I see regarding flash. It is up to the designer how complicated or simple the page is. Flash is just a tool.
I could do a rollover naviagtion system that on first apperaences you would think is images but in fact is flash - the result would be a lot smaller in file size.
OR i could do a drop down menu which again would be small in file size, look exactly the same in any browser and function in the same way and no need fo pages of JS or DHTML.
Navigation is one of the best places to use flash.
* use it for chronological sequences where meaningful graphics can add to the text, i.e. at a history.
* use it only as secondary navigation to a more conventional primary navigation.
* include arrows on either side, perhaps smaller (inside) to larger (outside) to signify the varying control over speed.
* add a line above or below to explain what is shown, and, at the risk of being tres uncool, how to use it.
* consider starting it in the OFF mode, or very (very!) slow.
BTW - thanks for the interesting links, BH.
I'm devastated. You didn't even mention the best example I've ever been able to come up with for the "if Jakob Neilsen [blippy.com] designed in Flash" site category.
It is truly an engineering marvel. He even invented new words when he needed to. Definitely a standard we all can use to guage our own sites by in the future.
You missed my point, although looking back, I can see that I wasn't clear.
I don't care what if it is flash, javascript, whatever, I don't want to have to figure it out. The first example Bonehead posted was something I would have to figure out to use.
I like simple. My favorite being plain html links on a site map page or at the bottom of each page. I am sure flash could make simple navigation, but it still ain't as simple as html on a site map page.
You are correct, Flash is a tool. But I have seen too many people abuse it.
-G
"Early Web Minimalist" ;)
Yeah I agree simple is good and if you just want to use plain HTML for navigtion its pointless looking to flash.
I just want people to shoot the message and not the messenger. Flash can be so simple that Joe Bloggs wouldnt be able to tell the difference between Flash and HTML.
Well, here's a handy-dandy little tool called Flash that offers that kind of flexibility and more. It can draw images in vector format -- and that means they can grow bigger or smaller without eating up a whole bunch more file size.
I intend to embrace the Flashy little fellah, but he just can't eat my whole site.
I celebrate the potential here. And, as much as I have problems with that accelerating navigation strip, I celebrate the experiment. They just threw too many features into it and lost site of usability.
