I am a big fan of Flash when it is used correctly and wisely, just like everything else. JavaScript, Lightbox, Adobe AIR, even Comic-sans can be used in ways that often improve the user experience rather than being a roadblock preventing it.
But it usually doesn’t work out this way. I know great Flash developers out there developing with accessibility and usability in mind, but the majority of ‘multimedia’ companies churning out Flash websites don’t really have a grasp on basic usability.
My experience with this tonight was on researching the dates for this year’s Falls Festival. First thing you run into is a splash page asking how you would like to navigate this website. OK, already making me think too much…
Right now I have two very simple tasks. That is to find out 1) is there one or two Falls Festivals? 2) what are the dates if so? Fairly simple right? Let’s see how we go, and we might as well have a go with the Flash page seeing I have broadband at home. Below is the Flash index page:
Falls Festival home page, Flash version
A couple of clicks here and there, a scan of the index page for information that might seem easy to find seeing everyone wants to know the essentials. FAQs? No… hmmmm. Getting there? Not really, I just want to know when it is. Man, this is so confusing.
After about two minutes I just gave up and eventually found my answer on the number two listing for Google, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is updated with current dates of the Festival, which bands are currently playing and everything I basically needed to know right where I could see them.
Just out of curiosity I went to the HTML version of the Falls Festival site to see what would happen and how fast (if it all) I could now find this information. This is what I saw:
Falls Festival home page, HTML version
Straight away I am introduced with two tabs suggesting to me there is two separate events (question #1 answered) but I still can’t find any obvious answer to my first question on dates. Back to Wikipedia for me and a bit more research as I know the answer is out there.
Now I feel stupid. I can’t find the simple answer to a simple question on the Falls Festival official website. Someone will no doubt point out the answer to me on the location of this information on the website, again making me feel like I’ve made the mistake, not the designer of this website.
This website has failed it’s most important test, not from a web professional but from a user with a specific task trying to solve it. I would not blame Flash for this, but poor information architecture. I just have to wonder, why does Flash so often equate (as it does in this instance) to a poorer experience for the user?
This post is tagged under: Design, Information Architecture, Usability
It’s not just you - I just went to the site and couldn’t find the dates either. It wasn’t under info or tickets or anything else.
Maybe everyone at the site automatically knows it’s at new years from hearing about it?
nice post on how people can miss out the bleendingly obvious casue they want to make it look pretty!
If you think about why anyone would go to that site it’s to get key details - date, location, bands…
and if that’s not on the front page, then they have got the fundamentals wrong - BIG TIME!
To Cheryl’s point - maybe the assumption is most woud know it’s a NYE thing - but maybe this year it aint? Who would know?
OMG……i really thought i was the only one. Instead of working which is where i am right now i have been failing at findng dates for this thing. I know it’s a NYE thing but you can never be too sure. I gotta work out annual leave. These people need a separate site link or something if they don’t want to ruin the prettiness of the site!