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I'm in the process of starting up a contracting business to do 3D work for the three colleges in my town. I'm hoping there's a market for it... even in the vet school I'm working for right now, I see dozens of ways that 3D could really help professors get stuff across to their students, or even ways that researchers could use 3D to sell their ideas to colleagues and the media.
The site I'm working on is http://www.eduvis.com/ . I'd really appreciate some honest critiques... imagine you're a university professor or department administrator thinking about ways to use a big fat grant. Would you be interested in this? What would make it better?
posted
I'm not a scientist, so I don't know how they respond to things, but I think your splash page could be a little more exciting - maybe a huge 3-D image. I mean, who wouldn't be at least intrigued by a giant three-dimensional intubated cat?
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Also, the rule going through the text is confusing.
And I'd lose the drop shadow behind "multimedia that works."
I like your color scheme in the logo texts (tan/red/blue) and think you should carry it throughout the rest of the page. The greys and silvers are competing for the main "look" of the page.
posted
And your webpage looks wonky in IE 6, you silly mac user you. (It looks correct, until the menu loads on the right, which shifts things around. not sure how else to explain)
Also, you're likely going to less want to aim this at professors teaching, but at professors doing research, because that means funding.
1) such a professor can afford a 3D model for a research project that they wouldn't have the budget for in the classroom (many professors have essentially no discretionary budget for classroom expenditures).
2) it'll impress the grant committee, meaning more money in the future.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I'm with fugu on the 'too dark' issue. Either make the background lighter, or increase the font size, otherwise reading it can give you quite a headache. And yeah, perhaps you should make it look a little better in IE!
Also: It's quite confusing to see the frame around the text ajusting itself every time you change pages... If you intended your site to look like a book, I think it's better to have a fixed format and just go to 'the next page' if you have more text. For example in that case you could 'bend' the corner of the page and put a "->" sign there, so people would know to click it to see the rest of the text.
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I think a well though-out use of dark is an excellent way to make a visually unique page that will stand out in the eyes of the common beholder.
It was the specific dramatic darks I used on this page that got another client interested in my design.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Yeah, Annie, it looks good, but your text color is yellowish white or orange which is VERY visible on black background, while on Zeugma's site the black text and the gray background don't mix too well, IMO.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I think that making the tan lighter would probably fix the darkness issue. My biggest gripe is that the larger font stuff looks pixelated.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I'm with fugu and Corwin about being too dark. It's the first mark of being an amateur work, IMO. Dark *can* work on a site, but it's far more difficult to pull off dark and clean than it is to pull off light and clean. Clean is the keyword. If it looks cluttered, it looks unprofessional.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Oh, dark can be good. However, perhaps a better word for that page is dim. It looks like someone's turned the brightness down on that section the monitor. The colors are dulled.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Wow, it's a walking disaster in IEwin! I've either misdefined a width, or something is breaking through a container and rearranging everything... this is going to take me a while to nail down.
Until then, though, thanks for the comments from the standards-compliant viewers! I'll add a "splash" page with a big graphic on it, and think about the darkness thing. For those who can see it, what about the content? It's all stuff I just sort of stream-of-conciousnessed. Still pretty hokey?
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I would definitely increase the contrast on the logo at the top. Dark logo on white background always works. Right now the logo just isn't very noticeable.
The main text is being upstaged by the navigation links on the right. They have too high contrast, IMO, and too prominent a spot on the page.
However, it's not that bad. It's clean and fairly well organized.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Switch the two body paragraphs around. The second one should be first.
It's not bad copy, but its size and position make it less desirable to read through. I would try to tell the whole story concisely in one or two large headlines that the visitor would read on the first sweep of the site. Then flesh the story out in the smaller copy. Tell the visitor right off the bat exactly what you have that they can get excited about. Don't give them vague cliche marketing hooks.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I amusing FireFox 1.0 on 800 x 600. and it looks like the the gray box with your text information is offset. The body of light grey box shifted into the dark grey box that has your "home," "about," and "services" links. The result is your text (like "stuck in the information stoneage" is outside of the light grey background on the left side.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I will suggest you need an actual working presentation, not just stills. If there are copyright issues, then you'll need to create one from scratch.
Ideally, you'd have one for each major area of presentation (engineering, chemistry, biology, physics, math, etc.). I'd start with one that has the widest application.
posted
How much are you going to try to get for, say, a creation of similar complexity to the kitten one?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Dag, by presentation do you mean a demo reel? I've got one, I just have to export it without my name in it. I'll embed it in the page when it's done, in the next couple of days (after I figure out what the heck is wrong with the code).
Fugu, it'll depend quite a bit on what the client wants, and how prepared they are for me (like, do they need their hand held through the entire process, or do they know what they want?)
The cat took me about a week to build and a week to animate, 80 hours, about the same as each of the three anesthesia machine modules, and I'd like to charge $40-$60 an hour.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Yeah, see, do you see a professor paying out over $3200 for a diagram for a class?
Market it as a tool to better communicate grant-related information, and as a better sort of diagram in a textbook (to the professors and the textbook companies).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
That's a good point, fugu... but there's a huge pot of money on campus for faculty who find ways to use technology in their teaching. It's fairly easy to get a grant from it, and that's actually what "paid for" the 2 hours of video that these animations were a part of. Cool stuff.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Dag, by presentation do you mean a demo reel? I've got one, I just have to export it without my name in it. I'll embed it in the page when it's done, in the next couple of days (after I figure out what the heck is wrong with the code).
Yeah - something that shows the animation as well. That's your whole selling point, really. Otherwise, it's just lots of pretty pictures to them.
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If I don't have a splash page, how else can I jazz up the home page? I can animate the logo switching from wireframe to finished render.... not too exciting, though. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:I can animate the logo switching from wireframe to finished render....
That would be cool.
You don't need busy, though, so much as eye-catching. I'm a fan of the minimalist aesthetic that grabs you with one central or large image and is cohesive enough to pull you down to be interested in the details.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
A couple of things about the navigation bar.
First, why have it on the right? There's nothing wrong with breaking conventions once in a while, but there should be a compelling reason for it. As it is, it's a little confusing.
Second, the highlighting of the background (the <li> tags) works ok, but it's a little misleading. A mouseover usually indicates that something is clickable, so it's frustrating when it doesn't work to click everywhere in the rectangle. Also, I'd say use the background highlight or the underline, but not both, unless you can get them to happen at the same time.
My last complaint is that the navigation bar gives no indication of the current page, so you can feel a little lost. (This is exacerbated by the location of the bar on the right. Adding in a current-page-indicator would go a long way towards easing the break of convention I mentioned above.)
Also, not sure why, but Firefox appears to be incorrectly drawing the red highlighted "SERVICES" area on a mouseover -- the white line above is getting obscured. I don't know what to do about that one.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
Oh, you can take care of the mouseover not equaling clickability thing by changing the a tag to block display.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Hey, as long as we're critiquing, can I get comments on this site I just put up a few days ago? I know fugu's seen one version of it or other, but I could always use some more feedback. It still needs some photos / drawings scattered around, and I'm going to add a gallery page at some point.
(Sorry to hijack your thread, Ayelar -- I can make a new thread on this if you'd like.)
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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I think the layout works decently well on most browsers, but I'm not sure about the font size or the custom scrollers. Could y'all let me know if anything looks cut off, or if you can't use the scroll arrows?
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It's very pretty (love the retro look to the logo), but the scroll arrows didn't work for me. I'm using IE, if that matters.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
try some brighter colors maybe? as i was looking at it it all began to blend.........and the dark colors made me think of vomit
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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AR, are you using macIE? And dkw, what's your screen resolution? You shouldn't have to horizontal scroll! Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I like how the site looks, but the scroll arrows are not working smoothly. If I have to go through clicking arrows rather than using my mouse scroll button, they should be easier to use than those are, and they shouls scroll smoothly.
The visuals look great though, and I like the colors adn the graphics.
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The graphics look great, and I like the colors. But you could probably get away with increasing the layout size substantially so you don't need so much scrolling.
BTW, the scrolling worked for me in Firefox on a Mac. But there was a bit of a pause, so I clicked the arrow too many times before it responded.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I'd make the entire graphic larger and use a cleaner font, not Times New Roman. The words are way too small and hard to read over your background mesh lightbulb, even Arial would make them slightly easier to read.
(Note: the graphics are fabulous otherwise and I wish I could do something even half that good from that standpoint!)
The arrows work for me in Safari. I'd gray out arrows that won't have any effect, though. (So, the up arrow would be disabled when you're at the top and the down arrow would be disabled when you're at the bottom.) Otherwise very nice.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
try Comic Sans MS for you font.........it is about ten times easier to read.........increase layout size..........and ditch the brown........destroy the arrows.........otherwise good
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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