Veerle's blog

I kind of have the feeling that people tend to use a lot of new buzz words these days and I wonder why all the fuzz? Why not keeping it simple for people to understand what exactly they mean? Do they just want to impress people who aren’t much into internet and computers? Or is it to impress the client?

Say, if I use all those new words he might think "oh boy he/she definitely knows what she/he's talking about". Just cut the crap and keep it simple is my motto. Be honest and keep it modest, I hate all the bla bla bla, it's bragging in my opinion. And most of the time it's like selling "air" and one day that won't be enough. Your quality is what counts at the end. I just need a chance to show what I create and in a lot of cases it doesn't really need much words, or at least not much of those buzz words to impress a client. And if I use them I try to keep it simple and be myself.

I've never heard of the term Post HTML until I read an article about it. It seems that Post HTML is the way to go, it's a technology that is conquering the Internet. Post HTML is actually a Rich Internet Application website made in Flash. I'm familiar with this ('push') technology where the visitor gets lots of interaction, where he can try things out. It's mostly used in product sites. And yes it is very popular and I believe it has lots of potential and possibilities. But after reading the entire article I got the same feeling of way back in the early days of Internet where people are looking into the future and were making all sorts of assumptions on how the Internet will be.... I guess it was all a bit exaggerated (like for instance the speed of the internet and the use of video etc.), no? In 1997-1998 you got the feeling that things out of Star Trek would be possible, but in fact not all that has changed since then.

A few Post HTML examples:

• Nike
• Mini USA, (Try build your own)
• Eccentris, a piece of artwork based on experience design
• Alien vs Predator

Marketeers say that people will likely choose a product based on the idea and story behind that product. Our buying behavior will be more and more based on emotions rather then on pure rational thinking. A perfect example of emotional buying is the trend where seeing in brands like Scapa Sports (don't mind the design, it doesn't fit the image at all). The use of logos is back and it's trendy to wear them. That's why these kind of interactive (Post HTML) product websites are being a success. Hm, if I think about my Apple products this makes kind of sense to me :-)

One thing I often notice in these kind of websites is the lack of functionality to navigate in between sections. A simple back is often lost or hard to find. A perfect example of what I mean is the Nike website. Yes it's large and has several sections but still it was confusing to me. Let's take a look. So got to nike.com/main.html and choose Europe, English and nikerunning.com. You get an orange page with a picture but you can't click on it and there is no "Enter" button etc. At the bottom you have two things "Nikerunning Global Home" and "Nikerunning.com Europe" If you click on the first one you get another window with a Flash to choose from, so go ahead and choose "English and Europe". Yes back where you started from! So only one choice left the "Nikerunning.com Europe" link. When you click, this seems the right one but oh boy what a hassle since we already have chosen Europe at the beginning of all this. Do you know what I mean? This is not user friendly! Why do we need the extra click on the orange page, why not link directly to the correct page? It's one click too much and too confusing. This is not a one off, there are several similar cases.

Conclusion

Until all this is "solved" and made easier, even Post HTML showcases won't conquer the Internet like some people seem to think. Functionality is still one of the most important factors in a website, they got to have both to be perfect. But don't get me wrong here, the Nike websites are always a piece of art, but a pretty face is not enough to make it entirely perfect. There are of course Post HTML sites that have both good looks and nice functionality, like the Eccentris website. But I guess the deeper the structure the harder to keep it in tact. The Nike website has such a deep structure and it has several sub-sites that it becomes a real challenge to keep it simple. With such large sites it's always a good idea to test the site with inexperienced users. My money is on the hybrid model websites that both use HTML (XHTML), CSS and Flash. Post HTML can be useful and will serve its purpose, but I don't see it taking over the entire web.

Wow did I wrote that? Guess I got a top moment there ;-)