New Road Runner Portal Site
November 20, 2003 | 
2 Comments
While this new (beta?) Road Runner broadband portal site is very impressive and an example of an all Flash portal application the does a little bit of everything, thus showing off the full capabilities of Flash, I can’t help but thinking they missed the mark.
It’s totally cool and seems to be totally off the mark.
It’s a portal for news, weather, sports and the like. For the most part people are going to be reading it and gathering information. While I can see how using Flash to deliver a small bit of this content makes perfect sense, and I understand that they are targeting broadband users, I can’t get around the fact that the majority of this site would be better off served as good old (X)HTML.
It’s slow. Even on an ultra-fast connection. It’s hard to use and inaccessible. You can’t bookmark anything. You can’t select the text. There are times when I couldn’t tell if something was loading or not. The design, while great visually and very cool, is a bit over-the-top and distracting with all it’s transitions. It’s just not the right method it seems for this kind of site and this kind of content.
It looks and feels like a desktop application, and maybe thats the point, I don’t know their goals so I’m just assuming here. But frankly, I just don’t get it. What is wrong with a Flash and HTML solution? No, this seems like a classic case of throwing technology at something before the needs of the user and the audience are fully understood.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
I could be wrong.
Filed under: Flash
Comments
1. Tim Sane said:
i totally disagree with everything Keith comments on. This is without a doubt the most incrediable interactive content site I have seen. For years html developers have always been anti flash as they themselves cannot deliver in this format. Agreed that most flash sites are better in html but this one is another story. It works on every level and marks a huge step for the poorly saturated internet. All I have to do is learn how to do this.
Posted on November 23, 2003 07:35 PM | #
2. Keith said:
Fair enough Tim. I admit this site is very impressive, and you’ve got every right to form your own opinion.
I’ve got a few questions and comments for you.
1st - you say “For years html developers have always been anti flash as they themselves cannot deliver in this format.” I imagine that just about everything this site delivers could be done with HTML. That is probably my biggest problem with it. What does Flash give you here that HTML wouldn’t?
2nd - you say “it works on every level.” This is far from true. The site is slow. Even on a broadband connection. Not a good sign for an information based site. The site is inaccessible, so for users with access problems it doesn’t work. You can’t bookmark pages. Search engines will have problems indexing it. I could go on.
With out a doubt this is an impressive show of technology. However, that could be all it is. Flash is a great tool when used properly, in my, frankly fairly educated opinion, this site is just a bit too much for the average user to handle.
But then again, that could be by design and if that is the case, then their right on.
Posted on November 25, 2003 10:22 PM | #
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