If you do sign up though, please include you team number in your user name!!
Thanks!!
edit:
By the way all costructive critisism is welcome!!
Any problems or questions about our new site can be directed to myself and I will pass the suggestion(s) or comment(s) along to the rest of the webteam.
One is more than enough already. lol. The first splash page where you pick broadband/dialup the image is huge. BTW: why do you have to make a distinction at all? I have yet to see a page with text/pictures as content that really needed people to pick. In fact, I have yet to see ANY page where a pressing need to have people specify their connection speed arose, period. Write clean HTML, and keep images sane (IE: don’t save everything as a maximum quality jpg, or have billions of colors in a small gif that doesn’t need it, etc) and there shouldn’t be a problem at all.
BTW: there is very strong contrast between your banner up top and the black background. Really have either a light or a dark background, its annoying to be undecided. Oh, and while I’m at it, the banner is huge, it pushes alot of the content “below the fold” so to speak for no apparent reason. (IE: the banner isn’t all that useful). Alot of wasted space at the very top of the page, which is semi-annoying.
Eevn though I’m not a big fan of intros, I did watch yours all the way through. Nice job with CoffeeCup Firestarter I must say. I’ve tinkered with that program before and I know it’s not easy to get what you want out of it.
Other than that, the site itself is pretty functional.
You should have a button on the flash to turn the music off. I absolutely, positively will not visit a site for more than 10 seconds if it forces me to listen to music. Whether I like the music or not, it doesn’t matter.
*Originally posted by Jnadke *
**Holy copyright violation.
**
If you are talking about the hoobastank song… don’t fret!!
The web team actually contacted them last year and requested permission to use it and were graciously allowed by Hoobastank!!
Thanks Hoobastank!!!
As for the music in the page itself, I don’t like having that there either, and am not sure about the legality of that one so i will look into it!! It may be or might have to be removed!! Or like Jdnake sugested, there may be an intergrated off button added if we do/can keep it!!
As for the colors of the page, the original page found HERE was decided on and worked for a while, but i do agree, a high contrast with black and white isn’t that easy on the eyes!!
Speaking of colors; does anyone know the link from that color pallatone* that Brandon posted a while ago for “nice” colors to use together on a webpage??
thank you all for your input, i will share this link with the webteam and we will probably be continually changing things and tweaking stuff to get it perfect!!
Oh… ok. I was fearing that the RIAA was going to hop on you like a bunch of flying monkeys and steal your magic slippers…
Like Ken said… I don’t like how the music suddenly stops on the introduction… you should at least have it fade out or end at the end of a verse…
As for the music, I didn’t realize that your main page was in HTML format until I recently right-clicked it… I thought it was Flash. In which case it might make the ability to turn the music off harder (you’ll have to use Javascript). Either that or use the embed tag to play the music rather than bgsound, that way you can set it to show the start/stop/volume slider…
It’s more of a control thing. You should always let the user be in control of what they want to do, and what they want to hear. I hate feeling forced to do something…
*Originally posted by Jnadke *
**Oh… ok. I was fearing that the RIAA was going to hop on you like a bunch of flying monkeys and steal your magic slippers…
**
That is, quite possibly, the funniest thing I’ve ever read on CD.
well the music on the site ends abruptly cuz legally u can use 30 seconds of a song w/o asking and the beverly hills cop theme last exactly 30 secs also i can do all sorts of things to the music since i have a mixing program called acoustica. as for javascript i have no clue how to use it lol umm i am going to try to make a flash site dont know how good that will be tho keep up the criticism ppl!
Fair use. The composers of the song, “When Sunny Gets Blue,” claimed that their song was infringed by "When Sonny Sniffs Glue, " a 29second parody that altered the original lyric line and borrowed six bars of the song. A court determined this parody was excused as a fair use. Important factors: Only 29 seconds of music were borrowed (not the complete song ). (Fisher v. Dees, 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986).) (Note: As a general rule, parodying more than a few lines of a song lyric is unlikely to be excused as a fair use. Performers such as Weird Al Yankovic, who earn a living by humorously modifying hit songs, seek permission of the songwriters before recording their parodies.)
Emphasis mine.
Its a tossup though. Personally, I’d get my own music for that, because it also isn’t an orginal work on the part of your team. Why does that matter? Well, FIRST is about creativity isn’t it? I’d personally prefer that my team’s website showcased OUR work, and not others.
maybe if i wrote music that would work but i don’t so…we use what we have and if I’m not mistaken the whole idea of making a website to being with is creativity no? so i would appreciate some constructive criticism
if you read up further on the post i got permission from them to use the song but thanx for checkin it out :yikes: o and thanx for timing it for me great work! lol
*Originally posted by K.Shaw *
**we use what we have and if I’m not mistaken the whole idea of making a website to being with is creativity no? so i would appreciate some constructive criticism **
Is that directed at me? I was just saying that using someone else’s music is sort of weird, on what is ostensibly your team’s site.
That and I get really annoyed at music on a webpage, period. If I want to hear music, I’ll listen to it using winamp thank you very much. No offense, but it doesn’t really make your site stand out all that much, or make your content anymore appealing. Look at any corporate website, or a major website. Generally speaking, you won’t hear any background music. To me, background music reminds me of someone who has just learned HTML and wants to pack in cool features (such as say those little javascript cursor trails), and makes the site feel sort of amateurish.
Oh, and on a slightly different note, yellow/red on black hurts my eyes. XP
BTW: I don’t want to come across as “this site sucks, go home and shoot yourself now”, I just don’t understand why people need to make posts like “it looks good, keep up the good work”, because IMO thats completely useless to the designer.
Thanks guys for the constructive criticism. That site was done last year in a frenzy so some things may be alittle out of wack and whatever, but we are already working on the site! Colors will be changed and I’m pretty good with java script so i may integrate the song on a “DO YOU WANT TO HERE IT” type thing. Also, wondering how you like the menu we have? I just made it this year in java script and i think its pretty cool.
Personally, I think dynamic menus are sort of annoying. Especially when they come down on mouseover, I sometimes mess up when going through the menu and it sort of annoys me.
Also, its nice to be able to drill through a site. Say I’m looking for information on your team’s robots, I’d like to click first on the robots section, then on a link for the 2002-2003 robot instead of selecting that through a menu. (less precise mouse movements)
ok guys, alittle work has been thrown into the site. The banner was shrunk in size, position of the menu determined, and the beverley hills cop song is now on a DO YOU WANT TO HEAR IT trial. Please tell me how you like the changes and for any other changes you see fit. Please dont talk about content though, that will be figured out over time.
No offense, but it doesn’t really make your site stand out all that much, or make your content anymore appealing. Look at any corporate website, or a major website. Generally speaking, you won’t hear any background music. To me, background music reminds me of someone who has just learned HTML and wants to pack in cool features (such as say those little javascript cursor trails), and makes the site feel sort of amateurish.