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solidtransient · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 7:15 am

Hello all. I frequent the site a fair bit, but mostly read. Anyways, I am having a problem with a website I am doing for my company. The site is an online Spy supply store. They didn't want any kind of shopping cart system so everything has to be called in for ordering.

My problem is the site looks perfect in IE 5.5, and good in Netscape... but I have been unable to test it in other browsers and versions.

Also I would like to hear your critism of the design and layout. I actually made the site almost a year and a half ago. Since then I have learned PHP...and now I would actually like to redo the site once more. But I wouldn't do that unless we got paid a little more.

The site is supposed to look and feel like something out of a James Bond movie. It has a terminal like interface with some flash mixed it to give it a less flat feel.

Here is a small shot of the site:

And you can visit it by clicking here

Any comments or advice or criticism is gladly welcomed.

David Marconnet http://www.control2x.com

afex · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 7:28 am

Well it looks good to me (i.e 6) I do however have a few little suggestions.....
1. To me it looks like you have a gray beveled shape and then a texture of some kind overlaying it.....on the edges that texture doesn't blend in or go all the way to the edge of the bevel...specially on the left side of the layout....

2 Instead of having regular scroll bars in there, use a style sheet to change their color and bevel, i would suggest a gray like the layout itself, and make it flat...if you need the style sheet you can get it at http://robouk.gdesign.nl/tutorials/scrollbar/

[ June 07, 2001: Message edited by: afex ]

dr . bang · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 8:22 am

This is a good website but I dont think its a good bussiness website. A bussiness website has to appeal to mature audience, mature = plain and simple, not flashy stuff.

Thats what i think, also, black is not a good color for a bussiness website.

afex · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 8:42 am

That was something i was think also dr. bang, but given the nature of the site i overlooked it

stneil777 · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 9:00 am

more pictures of the products for sure.

I think because it is about spy stuff the design is fine. What really matters is that the customer is happy

JoeKool · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 9:59 am

i agree with Dr.Bang et all..you certainly seem to know your Flash..but this site almost looks like its a killer website for a video game, instead of a business. Tone down the flash a tad and change the background..etc..Maybe grey instead of black..still keeping that spy/covert feel yet..easier on eyes and so forth for all audiences.
And I believe somene mentioned mroe pics..larger too would be great also..I know thats cruddy with file sizes..etc..but I f am dropping $$$ on some items over the net..I want to know what I am getting.

Vgta · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 10:28 am

Just adding to the previous comments.
See if you can nail down whom your target audience is, that will help you out with the design. Maybe get rid of some of the textures, by this I mean on the console. I get the feel of an industrial mill, or something out of command and conquer; when I think of spies I think sleek, clean and sophisticated. Best example I can think of, look at Golden Eye and the remote that Bond uses to navigate the BMW.
Great use of flash by the way. I have a fairly fast connection so you might want to have someone try it on a dial up modem to see how it performs.
Hope that helped

solidtransient · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2001 11:34 pm

Ah thanks to everybody who has replied so far. The site is very video gamish.. I don't usually do sites for companies that follow the same look as this one. Metrospy Corporation actually wanted a video game feel. The sent me pictures of Quake 2 and 3 and said "we want this"...so I did the best I could to make if feel like a futuristic computer interface. They actually wanted more flash than whats already on there, but I said they needed to leave it at that, because of the resources that so much flash would use.

The site is supposed to be completed in a weeks time. I am still working on the database. The site didn't have any glitches as far as you could tell? The Netscape version is not as impressive as IE, and that wasn't planned... I just made some mistakes in the design.

They are happy with it and thats fine by me. I will have to see about getting the style scripts for scroll bars onto the site. I use those on my personal site, but at the time I made metrospy, IE 5 was the newest browser, and the scroll bar style sheets didn't work on it, if I remember correctly.

I'd like to hear from some other people about the site. So please continue to tell me your thoughts and ideas.

Thanks,
David Marconnet http://www.control2x.com

Matt Elder · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2001 7:21 pm

My comments would be like those already in terms that it needs to be cleaned up a little for a business site. But if they wanted a quake game style, this comes across reasonably well. The thing I have a main grip about is the "real" content area. You have quite a large header across the top and a large section down the bottom which I think should be scrapped to extend the middle content area a bit more.

solidtransient · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2001 11:52 pm

Alright, I finished the site. I took the advice of afex and added the scroll bar style sheet. Now tell me what you think of the finished site.

Oh and does anyone know a good log analysis service besides webtrends? I have those tacky little webtrends on the site now, and I don't like them.

Thanks,
David Marconnet http://www.control2x.com