[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash - longish

viveka me at karmanaut.com
Sat Apr 21 21:13:39 CDT 2001


>  I decided to share my tuppence worth
>
>site url: www.exmoor.tv

This is a good use of Flash in my book. There appear
to be flash-free versions of the maps as well, are there
not? Zoomable maps implemented in HTML tend to
suck, due to the http request lag and requirement to
load an entirely new image for every view of the same
map. Flash works well for this; and if you don't have it,
you can still access the rest of the site.

The only thing that I disliked were the navigation arrows.
Up moved my viewpoint up and the map down;
Down moved my viewpoint down and the map up.
So far it makes sense. But Left moved my viewpoint right,
moving the map left instead. Vice-versa for Right.
Choose a behaviour for the buttons and stick with it;
I found the UP-DOWN viewpoint moving behaviour
worked well for me, while the LEFT-RIGHT map moving
behaviour was less straightforward. Making it draggable
would be great, as long as you let people know that
it's draggable and you change cursors to indicate the
difference between a draggable region and a clickable
hotspot. Also beginning users might have more
difficulty with a drag behaviour than with a click-the-button
interface. As always, user testing will tell you.

Regards,

V.
-- 
|  Viveka Weiley, Karmanaut.	 http://www.karmanaut.com
|  hypermedia :: virtual worlds :: human interface :: truth :: beauty
|  http://www.planet-earth.org :: http://www.MacWeb3D.org
|  http://www.sydney.siggraph.org.au





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