Websites with Live PowerPoint presentation and Embedded "blog"

[pauland]

Hi Andy,

I can see that you've worked hard on these sites and back in post I said I didn't like the website and I wondered if you'd ask why, but it didn't happen.

No you've asked for feedback, I'll explain why I don't like the website. Others may disagree, and I guess that your customer is happy with what is there.

My main objection is that the site is very cluttered, loads of text, small pictures, loads of graphics, things whizzing in and out and a background changing all of the time. It's hard to know where to look.

For me, a bar/pub/restaurant site should be about establishing atmosphere, be welcoming and inviting and not cramming in small text. As a punter I'm looking for somewhere to have a drink, not a place to read a pamphlet before I make a decision. Most people decide really quick when they visit a site if they will stay or go. The site will benefit from less stuff being in the visitors face and simple focussed messages. The website should be using far fewer bells and whistles.

The Bazil pub site has a real identity crisis. You go the the web page and it's telling you about other bars! It's clearly such a great pub, that you need to be somewhere else. Refer to the other bars, but not so prominently.

There's a changing background. The background is an absolute pain, because the main content is translucent and the background makes it less readable, but worse still it keeps changing, yet the main content obscures it so much it's all but impossible to see what the background is.

The specials. They look very bad on my iPad, they look wrong on my desktop. The top of the specials gives me a cookie notice, little bits are missing from the specials screen ( the slider tells me that, as does tiny bits of orange poking out below the cookie warning). Scrolling down gives me a mess at the bottom.

Less is more. Refine this site to have less text (with plenty of room for the text to breathe), more atmosphere, a clear welcoming message, less gizmos.

In fairness, my quick search for bars in the same area, didn't find one website that I thought was any good!

I really do mean well. Take a look at the examples that Cloud posts.

Paul

http://www.districttaphouse.com/
http://www.69colebrookerow.com/#about
http://www.flutebar.com/location/new-york/ (a bit cluttered, old-style)
http://www.overlooknyc.com/

[andymack]

Thanks Paul, real advice from a pro. I totally agree with everything you say! Less is more, I keep telling myself, but I like to 'play', my bad. I will genuinely look to taking your advice in my next project.
With this specific bar/pub, there are three bars in one place, same owner, same punters, just different atmospheres. So when you walk into Bazil's building, you have three doors to choose, literally like that, left, right and center. So I was trying to convey that, maybe just too jumbled as you say. I will be disabling a lot of the animations now I have finished playing with them. And I will be decreasing text amount and putting it on a more solid background. I will be looking more at the large graphics with parallax scrolling as you sent as example, less text more large graphics.
I am a big fan of everything that Cloud does, his websites are the very best on here, but he does not use Xara for those. But the design and layout will always be a great resource on how a site should look.
With the Specials food menu, I will look at finding a way to tidy it up, maybe embedding a whole page from blogger within an iframe that will look like a notice board, with more than just the daily menu, so it looks like a complete page.
Many thanks for the feedback, it is great when someone in the same field takes time to help others.

[pauland]

I am a big fan of everything that Cloud does, his websites are the very best on here, but he does not use Xara for those.

It matters not what people use to construct a website, you can make similar sites with Xara.

This site shows how a mobile and desktop site should differ. The mobile version has the essentials.

http://www.hollybushhampstead.co.uk/

Here's a side-scroller:

http://www.whistlingshop.com/

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Andy, as your thread title relates to Live Power Point presentations and Embedded Blogs I'll restrict myself to commenting on jmainly these points.

PP: For me the Live Power Point dosen't load in FF (v42) just stuck on the loading page. Fine in IE, Chrome & Safari. What's the advantage of using PP? You could equally create the site as a Xara Presentation and load it via an Iframe. The presentation should work equally as well on the bars TV's ???

With the blog I find that the blog is not fitting the window (see screen grab). Perhaps Atom can advise you here?

Finally, as a visitor with no idea that Bazils is three bars in one, a point Paul stated. For all the first time visitor knows they may be in different cities. I've know idea where Appleton is, give visitors a clue, "Appleton, Wisconsin, USA". But more than this try to bring over the point that it's three bars in one.

[behzad]

Egg, how are you? I love your name :P

[Egg Bramhill]

That's fine, but no kissing with tongues

[behzad]

LOL

[pauland]

What's the advantage of using PP?

I think the bar staff can use powerpoint to do the specials menu.

It does make me wonder how the powerpoint gets onto the web server.

Finally, as a visitor with no idea that Bazils is three bars in one, a point Paul stated. For all the first time visitor knows they may be in different cities. I've know idea where Appleton is, give visitors a clue, "Appleton, Wisconsin, USA". But more than this try to bring over the point that it's three bars in one.

I think there should be a "gateway" page leading to the three separate bars.

Each bar should showcase itself, but could have a more subtle link to the other two bars.

On Bazil's bar the advertising of the other two bars is just too prominent - Basil's bar is so good you should be somewhere else!

I think that for a bar or restaurant, people need to know:

1) What kind of place it is, what can they expect?
2) Menu,
3) Opening hours,
4) How to get there

1) is what makes people decide to investigate further.

[Boy]

I think there should be a "gateway" page leading to the three separate bars.

With some graphics (and possibly a bit of text) making it visually very clear that punters (funny word to a non-Brit) can choose between three different experiences.

[pauland]

Absolutely.