Ok so I built a website.....will they come?

[Wiglaf]

http://www.2kgames.com/bioshock/enter.html

!

Maybe you should give up on life. I have you cornered.

[Asher]

That is a classic example of a terrible website design. Good job.

The popup windows, the useless flash intro...TEXTBOOK.

Not to mention the pseudo-3D "exploration" style site. That's an interactive ad, not a real website.

[Wiglaf]

Doesn't matter if it's bad. It reeks of professionalism. Which is what you want when selling things.

[Tiamat]

ok remember, stupid girl here. Knows nothing about making a website. It has to be very simple. I looked at their sight. It's really .....well....flashy. WOW looked at the link and I can't believe I'm saying this but that was good advice Wiggy. I like it.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Doesn't matter if it's bad. It reeks of professionalism. Which is what you want when selling things.

It reeks of professionalism? That BioShock page seems like it was written by someone like Frozzy -- a "professional" and not a professional.

Tiamat is making home-made pies. You do NOT want an overly flashy overly slick commercialized aspect to it, she's not Betty Crocker.

You want an accessible, quick to load, functional site that provides information.

You do not want a site with loading times, lack of copy/paste functionality, and in general ass-tastic qualities that plague Flash-based websites.

[Tiamat]

the cupcake one. But that just maybe because she has so many pictures. We are visual by nature you know.

[Wiglaf]

Lack of copy paste functionality? WTF? Both in the editor and when viewing these pages, you can copy and paste.

The pages also take 1-2 seconds to load, judging by the one I linked earlier.

So by 'ass tastic qualities,' you mean flashiness.

Keep in mind Flash obviously is not the best website solution. When compared to yahoo templates though, no contest.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Damn it. Now I'm hungry.

QFT!

[Hueij]

Originally posted by Tiamat
ok remember, stupid girl here. Knows nothing about making a website. It has to be very simple. I looked at their sight. It's really .....well....flashy. WOW looked at the link and I can't believe I'm saying this but that was good advice Wiggy. I like it.

Tia, don't go this way. Like Asher says, (X)HTML/CSS is the way to go. I don't know how you feel about being found on Google but if you go Flash you are going to have a hard time. It is possible but a pain in the ass.

And since you go for a traditional, tried and true image I would keep it really simple. You want people to visit your site because of what you have to offer (which, from my European perspective seems a kinda nostalgic, kind of "remember those dood ol'e days of way back then?"), not because you have a flashy site.

If you want I could put up a quick mock-up of your site this weekend, built like I (and Asher ) think it should be build.

Side note: I hate making posts like this. I really, really hate to have to agree with anything Asher says...

[Wiglaf]

It's not about flashiness, it's about customizablity. You can make 'unprofessional' looking sites in flash too. With sitemaker it would take all of 15 seconds to fix the glaring errors with the page as it is now (picture size, placement of captions), whereas given yahoo's crap, it might take days. And if you don't use a template HTML just got to near-impossible levels of complexity for the thread starter.

And google can index sitemakers pages. This is a lie much like Asher's BS about copy paste.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
It's not about flashiness, it's about customizablity. You can make 'unprofessional' looking sites in flash too. With sitemaker it would take all of 15 seconds to fix the glaring errors with the page as it is now (picture size, placement of captions), whereas given yahoo's crap, it might take days. And if you don't use a template HTML just got to near-impossible levels of complexity for the thread starter.

And google can index sitemakers pages. This is a lie much like Asher's BS about copy paste.

I googled "clares cupcakes". First hit on page one Then I googled just "cupcakes". I stopped looking after checking page 2...

Building a site like Tia's with an open source CMS behind it like Drupal or Wordpress will take no more than two hours. And her (with no knowledge of HTML) updating her site whenever she wants will take a couple of minutes.

Don't know about sitemaker but I seriously distrust any drag-and-drop WYSIWYG application.

[Wiglaf]

I googled "clares cupcakes". First hit on page one Then I googled just "cupcakes". I stopped looking after checking page 2...

Which proves nothing. Maybe nobody likes claire's crappy cupcakes.

My gut tells me sitemaker, which provides e-commerce tools, the ability to make a good looking popup gallery of THE PIES, and much improved customizability over a template, would be a better start for someone like Tiamat.

[Hueij]

M'kay, the choice is hers. I know what I would do...

[Tiamat]

My friend and I add some pictures to the site last night so check the new stuff out.

[Tiamat]

nevermind I just looked at it and stuff is all fu**up. I'm at work but won't be able to correct it until lunch. We're moving so our internet at home is off as of yesterday. Damn!!!!! This is so freeeking hard.