Thank you, port32.com critics.

[icarus]

A thank you from my Dad for those who helped critique the www.port32.com site:

Thanks again, this is very useful. I had a web development company forced upon me and the only way I could keep the job moving was to just let run with it. So we're launched on time and most of the PC users appear to have few or no problems, but the mac side is a mess. And of course since the Toronto people I ask would think that I designed the site they'd be reluctant to bash it. What I need, and what I'm getting from you and your colleagues, is the truth. Now, how to use the information...very touchy politics in this one.

Nice to hear compliments about the photography since I did shoot much of it. And I directed the video shoot, but not the edit.

Now heading North to the island of sanity.

Great work, guys.

He doesn't write slash, but shall I see if I can get another story from his cabin out of him? :)

Darn this Out Of Bounds. I sit down to write a the next chapter -- and a completely different chapter pops out. How I'm going to meld this in I have no idea.

Comments

[swtalmnd]

As a comment, I think a lot of the bad could be avoided if they just took out the horrid Flash thing and put a still or animated gif in its place, something much simpler and less noisy, hard to load, and disruptive. This would allow the rest of the site to shine without the distraction, and quite probably fix the logo issues in Opera.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

What troubled me was that the developer clearly did not test the site in Opera, Mozilla, or older renditions of IE. Given some of the issues that popped up with Safari I'm guessing they didn't test it in Safari either.

People who've helped me with my site have also said that it's standard procedure to have several browsers installed on your system and to check the site in different ones. The thorough ones also test the old versions of various browsers as well.

I'll cut them slack for hanging too many bells and whistles on the site. Everyone does that because they're trying to sell to their customer, the real estate company, not the end user. There's no excuse for not testing it, though.

Icarus

[swtalmnd]

Yes, I keep 5 browsers (though I don't always remember to check Ancient IE, as not even most major commercial sites work with it anymore) on my Mac, and I always check on friends' PCs as well. All I can guess is, if they're PC based (as they'd have to be, to make it look that bad in all the Mac browsers, frankly), that they've never really heard of the various oddling Mac browsers? Except, Safari comes with all Macs now, and Opera isn't exactly obscure (the 4th is Firefox which they'd better have heard of, and the 5th is Camino, which is so brand new I don't expect anyone to have tested in it yet).

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The problems were occurring in Firefox on PCs though, or at least that's my understanding. If it's just Macs, that's a screw up and an oversight given how many families by their parents nice easy smiling user-friendly Macs. But as near as I can tell (I could be wrong) they've only tested this in IE 6.

Icarus

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

Yes, at least some of the problems occured in the latest stable Firefox on Windows. Not good at all

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I told my dad that I suspected these guys were a couple years behind the curve, technology-wise. Good artistically, good at creating an easy-to-navigate site. But between the Flash and the fact they seem to have missed the end-user switch from IE to Firefox over the last couple of years... well, I'm guessing they don't have their eye on the ever-changing technology ball.

Icarus