Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

As Amada said, creating the site in all Flash is wrong. If you use Flash as fro some graphics that is great but make as much of the copy as possible be HTML. Search engines will like it and so will your boss.

Also it makes it easier to change wehn you need to, which you will.

What a joke, to think that you can create a reasonable looking web site in Flash with no experience. Do yourself a favor and go to Templatemonster.com and buy a site and modify it.

And before you do that startegize what you want people to do after the see your site (call to action) and what image and message you want to put out front.

Studio 8 also includes Dreamweaver, which is a very handy tool for doing html-based sites so the purchase isn't a total loss per se. But no tool in the Macromedia Studio is "easy" to learn, Dreamweaver included, nor will any of the tools "automate" site creation or allow a novice to build a quality web site. You will still need to have a decent understanding of web site design to pull it off. Sounds like the decision has already been made by your coworkers, unfortunately. Be prepared for a steep learning curve! They should have used that $800 to hire a freelance web designer fresh outta school to come in-house and build your basic site. Jeez.

As for Flash vs. html, there are advantages to doing a site in flash but they are all lost in the hands on someone who doesn't know how to really push Flash to the limit. There is nothing worse than a poorly done Flash site, and without ample experience - talking 1-2 years minimum, Flash is TOUGH to learn - forget about it. Your site will come off cheesy and low-dollar, if it ever even works properly. Avoid the Flash route if none of you have prior experience with it.

The comments about search engines not seeing your flash content are wrong, however - Google (and by extension most search engines out there) fully indexes all text and links in Flash files, and has for some time now. Just figured I'd throw that out there!

B,
Hey, there is so much I could say about this, and I tried to keep it short, but it looks like I failed miserably. You have a couple of things going on here, which I feel I should address, so here it goes! :)

Positive: Studio 8 comes with Dreamweaver, which in my opinion is not hard to learn and pretty much the best WYSIWYG software out there, comes with some outstanding tutorials, and many resources online for help. Having Dreamweaver is a definite plus for you. Front Page would have been WAY worse.

Drawback: Dreamweaver only helps you put together the pages, it doesn't give you designs to work with. You have to have a pretty decent knowledge of associated graphics programs to design your pages before you HTML or Flash them. Note: there are probably sites out there where you can find a cheap template that you can modify to fit your needs, and this will still be considered an "in-house" site. Dreamweaver also gives a basic layout for many different types of sites, but these are all going to look like a million other sites out there, and shouldn't be used as a good long-term solution.

Positive: Studio 8 comes with Contribute, the program which helps your every day person update pages without having to know HTML.

Drawback: You have to know how to set up the site so it can work with Contribute.

Positive: You have a licensed copy of the latest version of Flash which will probably work pretty well for your needs for at least a couple of years, maybe even 3 or 4 if you're lucky.

Drawback: I TOTALLY agree about not using Flash. Flash is not a program you just pick up on a weekend of tutorials. It is inherently problematic for newbies, and not something you want to stake the success of your very first corporate website on.

Positive: You have a very excited, doesn't-yet-realize-she-doesn't-have-a-lot-of-experience intern who will probably go above and beyond in an effort to be important and useful. Lots of extra un-paid hours there just waiting to happen. Are you the lead on this project? If so, you will need to take a proactive stance, and try to create some sort of unity between the three of you, or you may have a looooong battle, and potential for a lot of damage on your hands. Especially with a small 20-person company. Express the importance of making decisions as a team and be sure to help the young intern understand that she is important in this process, but that it is a team effort, and to be successful, you will need to work as a team, to pool your resources. If you can keep the right attitude about this, you can make really it work in your favor, and get a much better product out of it. So, when you want to throw a coconut creme pie in her face, don't. Offer her some instead. You might consider suggesting a simple site to begin with, while you develop the site that is more complex, with Flash elements (total Flash site is a search engine results killer, takes too long to load, is an outdated concept and just not a good idea!).

My suggestion? Create a site that is primarily HTML and build Flash elements into it as part of your site growth plan. With a great plan in place, the growing pains of your site will not be so bad. Also, when this intern starts trying to learn Flash, it won't be long before she realized that she bit off a bit more than she can chew, and this will also give her a way to save face, which has the potential to really promote some good communication between you two.

One of the best sites to learn programs like Flash is: https://www.lynda.com/. It's worth the small subscription to have access to all the videos, tutorials, etc. etc. etc. Sounds like you need to have something like that not just for you, but for your very excited intern as well.

By the way, as you are being positive and supportive, be sure to document all your communication concerning this project, so if something does come up later, you're covered.

As I'm writing this, I just keep thinking about something my dad used to tell me when I was a teenager, and I think it applies to many a young intern. "Attention Teenagers: Tired of being hassled by unreasonable parents? Want control over your own life? Move out, get a job, and earn your first million while you still know everything."

*sigh* This reminds me of my days training interns and graduate assistants at my old job. I must say I do LOVE being a partner in my own business where I can choose things like who I have working for me, what software to buy, what socks I'll walk around in the house with all day while I'm working. You know. All the important things in life.

Best of luck to you with this.

Jennifer
XPRT Creative