Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Hello Friends.

I recently redesigned my website and asking for some input regarding asthetics, function and accessibility. This new design is mostly Flash and I made all the animation using Flash 8, with Dreamweaver, Photoshop and a whole host of Adobe products. It took me about 2 weeks of coding and scripting.

1) Does the website look well designed?
2) Is it easy to navigate?
3) Does the website emulate a musical focus?
4) Are the animated components loading too slow?
5) Is it too cluttered and distracting?

These are the questions I can think of at the moment. Thanks for your help!

http://www.jsantos.net

Also, is it too wide?

I made it 1080px wide and most older computers have a 970px setting.

Not too wide for me.
It was easy to navigate for me.
Animated components loaded plenty fast.

And it looks awesome.

gtZip wrote:Not too wide for me.
It was easy to navigate for me.
Animated components loaded plenty fast.

And it looks awesome.

Thanks Zip! May I ask which browser you use?

Nice Job... Definitely a good start. I like the player that you added in there

Looks pretty good on my work-restricted computer!

Thanks for the input guys! I forgot to ad a "friends" page for links to bands I network with. After that, this site should be complete.

Let me know if you would want me to ad your band link to mine.

Thanks again.

GuitarMikeB wrote:Looks pretty good on my work-restricted computer!

Same here
Using Firefox as the browser
Good job !

Just FYI, you do know that ipads and iphones won't be able to see your site if you used Flash?

JessicaProutyBand wrote:Just FYI, you do know that ipads and iphones won't be able to see your site if you used Flash?

Yes I do. There is a line at the top of the web pages for "Non-Flash" version.

I am working on a redirect browser code for this instance.

But thanks for the input.

See you at the NAMM show

Firefox as well ... and though you page is a tad wider than my screen I don't find it detracting nor distracting at all.


Well done !

One comment ... I see no route to exit the photos area back to the home page or other parts of your site?

I had to click on the "back page " cursor on my computer to exit the photo area.

Perhaps I overlooked something?

sanshouheil wrote:Firefox as well ... and though you page is a tad wider than my screen I don't find it detracting nor distracting at all.


Well done !

One comment ... I see no route to exit the photos area back to the home page or other parts of your site?

I had to click on the "back page " cursor on my computer to exit the photo area.

Perhaps I overlooked something?

lol yes. The Logo on the top left corner is the "return to website" outlet. Thanks for the input, I will fix that. Glad you like it.

When I looked at the Noisy Kungfu website last week, it inspired me to redesign mine. Thanks again.

I thought your site looked very cool, but I
don't know sh#t about computers. It all fit
on my page and the pop-up pictures came
up. You know with CD Baby and Tunecore
they charhe you something like 10 cent a
browser ythey bring buy and your site is
suppose to try to sell them something i.e.
your music or merchandise, I didn't see
access to a storefront or advertising of your
merch or music, just wondering. It looks great,
I wonder is it working for you?

jsantos wrote:

gtZip wrote:Not too wide for me.
It was easy to navigate for me.
Animated components loaded plenty fast.

And it looks awesome.

Thanks Zip! May I ask which browser you use?

IE ( 8... I think it was, when I checked it out the first time)

hey Jerry!
Flash is generally used for animation and streaming content. These days, AJAX is better suited for that - also, you're using it primarily for entry effects and static text ~ seems like overkill to me. Personally, I'd go with a static design. Easier to design, and doesn't require plugins.

Width I think is too much. As a general rule of thumb, the less the eye has to travel from left to right when reading, or scanning pictures, the more aesthetically pleasing and easier to find things. The standard used to be 640 (-40 for scrollbar width = 600 wide). These days standard width is around 1024x680, but stock resolution is set at 800 (760 to eliminate scrollbars) despite the larger screens.

Personally, I like the centered / fixed width approach - elastic content is okay, but difficult to design. Call me simple

Aso for bio information ~ when people come to a music site, they don't want to read alot of text - they want to explore video, music and pictures (usually in that order), and they don't want music to start on its own. They may have had their speakers turned up and all of a sudden your site shakes their walls. It's usually best to let the user control when they want to hear music.

Navigation should usually be closer to the top of the page ~ this is where people expect it to be, and if they are on a laptop with 640x480 resolution, your navigation will be at the bottom of the page

at 640 pixels


at 800 pixels



What I see in Chrome - note the scroll bars and text of your bio is a little out of phase.



The non-flash version, IMO is really good, though I would move the bio off the cover to make it less wordy. If people want to read bio info, then they go to the bio page for that. Instead of a bio, perhaps a dated list of most recent projects so when they visit your site, they immediately know whether you're currently active or not (by virtue of seeing the dates and what you're doing).

Sorry to be the critical poster! ~ I'm somewhat biased given the fact that I've had website/application "usability training" ~ it's one of the terrible things they make me do at work :/

But the content is great!
chris!