Websites with Live PowerPoint presentation and Embedded "blog"

[andymack]

I have revamped a few websites lately, and one of them now displays a PowerPoint presentation. The reason I did this, is because my client uses a couple of huge TV screens to display his current beer selections that he is offering in his pub/bar. (I designed the local powerpoint slideshow for him to make it easy for his bar staff to display the selection of beer on tap, as it changes a lot). By 'broadcasting' this screen, his customers can see what beers are on tap online, even before going there. Some of the designs of the labels are not particularly clear, but no more so than when viewing them on the 60" screens in the bar. Anyway, proof of concept done.
In this website, I also have the "Lunch Specials" board, which is maintained by the bar staff, so I do not have to update the whole website each week. I did this by embedding a blogger page which the bar staff have access to, which displays pretty well on the website, both the Desktop and Mobile site, (which i purposely made very different).
I use a redirect to desktop or Mobile versions, so unless you type in this url on your phone, you will only see the main site. But as website designers, you might be interested enough to see how different the two sites are and type it in, it is not a long url:
If you go to the desktop site, just check out the "BAZIL'S" tab and then "Live Beer List"
If you go to the mobile site,Click "Bazil's Pub" and then "View our Beer Selection Screen Here!"

See it here > http://www.bazilpub.com/

[gwpriester]

Tasty design. And fun, entertaining, and informative. All the things a great website should be.

[pauland]

Clever solution, though I'm not a fan of the website. :-(

[gsthunder]

Overall I like it and think you did a great job. Couple things I would work on but again overall great job!

[behzad]

Some nice work. How do I scroll the lunch specials?

[andymack]

I just checked the site with an iPhone and Android plus the desktop version and they all just work the same as every other page? Just scroll by dragging up or down the screen. Can you elaborate so I can fix what might be happening with you please?

[behzad]

On desktop, using google. CLick on Menu on left. Then click lunch specials at top of the screen (In red and blue). See the information has no bar for me to scroll it up and down. I positioned my cursor at the top and moved it down by hitting arrow down key. See attachment.

[gsthunder]

On desktop, using google. CLick on Menu on left. Then click lunch specials at top of the screen (In red and blue). See the information has no bar for me to scroll it up and down. I positioned my cursor at the top and moved it down by hitting arrow down key. See attachment.

I hadn't seen the lunch special option when I looked before. So, I just went now and looked( using IE11, FF, GC, and Opera ). It is the same for me on all of them. You have to use the wheel on the mouse or the arrow keys as you pointed out to scroll it up and down. I agree, there should be a manual slide bar to scroll it.

99.99% of people will never know there is more there because there is nothing that indicates there is more content below what shows. Where it ends looks like a natural end so people won't go look to see more. So any extra info below where it cuts off will almost never be seen.

The area needs some type of manual slide or notice that there is more info below or people just won't realize it. I never would have known to scroll down using the mouse wheel or keyboard arrows if I had seen the lunch specials when I visited the site the other day. I would have assumed what was there is what was shown.

Also, FWIW, up top where it says May 16-20 the OP used a small case o instead of 0 on the end of 20.

EDIT - I just went back and looked and the OP's <iframe> code does not include the portion that inserts the slide so that is why it isn't showing. IT is the OP's decision obviously but I would add it in.

The current code is ( <iframe> left out or it messes it up here ) src=http://bazilslunchspecials.blogspot.com/ width="510" height="640". There is no provision to allow it to scroll up and down/side to side if there is more content than the display frame. It needs the scrolling="yes" command line in there.

[andymack]

Thanks gsthunder, and others, for helpful feedback, this is how all forums should be! No matter what I tried, including clearing my cache of course, and removing the website from the host and resubmitting it, I always got the full menu, from the top of the page to the bottom, no scroll bars required ( I actually hid the scroll bar with a coloured bar, the same as the background, to hide it). But of course, looking at your screenshot, there is obviously something wrong, so I simply removed the blanking bar and it is now displayed on the site.
This might not be the best solution for a customer to edit his own website, but I was trying to just capture that specific part-of-a-page-of-a-blog to display in that frame. Something must have changed since I did this, as this has been like this for over a year. I am definitely keeping this though, as I do not want to have to edit the site every time this food menu changes.
Many thanks for pointing that out.
I was surprised that no-one was even a little interested in having a method to display a live PowerPoint within a webpage, somewhat blase and underwhelming for you experts I suppose!
I have been looking online for ideas for the mobile version of this website, and I never really found one that inspired me, so I thought my mobile option is quite unique, with the homepage layout, and, very different from the desktop version. I would like feedback on the mobile version, and how to make it better, and maybe someone could point me to an existing pub website that looks really good in their opinion. (I understand looking good, and performing its function is very different, but I also understand that websites also have to look quite good initially, to create a good impression. Even if they have no real structure! (Not my strong point, but I do like using a lot of the functionality of Xara and being able to get something online quickly.) Thanks for your feedback.

[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/