Publicis & Hal Riney - online web task

After persuing a few more favourite web award sites, some good, some ok, I have decided to plump for a comment on this site - HRP, or Publicis & Hal Riney. These guys are a new media group, just generally wanting to showcase some of their work and unique (so far in my experience of the online world) experiment with the navigation methods.

And so, the unique thing with this site is that you can navigate by mouse, or... webcam and hand gestures!



So rather than just the traditional affair of click here, click there, instead you can wave your hands about like a goon playing Wii, or using the Eyetoy, and try to find your way through.

I did try webcam, and I can see how it would work, but unfortunately, the site needed more bandwidth than what I could offer, so had to give in for the trusty desk rodent (that's a mouse.) Plus, for me, websites shouldn't be frustrating, they should be alluring. And this alternate method would probably have annoyed me, by being an unneccessary gimmic (and that's coming from me, the Nintendo Fanboy who loves the motion sensitive interactivity and navigation of the Wii!)

Once you are in, you are shown a visual animation of something which instantly strikes as being blood! It oozes onto the screen, floating around as if diffusing through water. It is a very nice looking animation, quite captivating really just watching it float around.



The site oncemore ditches the traditional left hand side, or top navigation bar (hey, it's the future) and instead creates it's own solution - it embeds links within the blood. You hover your mouse over and the link associated with that area of the image appears.

This is where I'd criticise the site, though. When you first start, you are given no indication of what to do. You have to guess, and what with the subtle colours schemes used (beige, and white) it is quite hard to see what you're doing. Add to that a slow connection and this thing would be a nightmare to look around.

When you get through to the leadership section, again, the site has something a little different. Instead of just a still picture of the person and their biography, HPR have a video which sits on top at the right of the screen, and actually shows the person doing something. OK, it isn't fundamental to the piece, but it's a nice little extra. It hints at the things that we might see in use, in future new media pieces.

On first look, you might just think that they simply have one page, which is about one man. However, clicking on an arrow on the right hand side of the page brings the next biography onto show. It does this by horizontally 'swishing' (technical term) the information onto the screen from the right.

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Looking at these screens, you can very much see that the site is similar in looks to what you'd see in a graphic design magazine. It is all quite minimalist, with striking typefaces and layouts used, along with the unusual graphic of the blood, splattering at the bottom. Personally, I think it's not perfect for a website, as I've already mentioned, it's hard to find the links to click on the navigate around. This is fundamental to the success of a website, so perhaps a stronger contrast, colourwise, would work better.

Having explored the site though, there is some familiarity in terms of navigation. HRP have a sort of progress line in the bottom left hand corner (hard to see again, courtesy of white being more or less indeterminable with beige), which allows you to navigate to, for example, home - work. These are working links and I really like how hovering over 'work' brings up the other menu options. Obviously this sort of exanding menu is now often used in websites, but the geography of it, how it was in the bottom left, and the menu expanded upwards, is what I noted and liked in particular.



When considering the branding being reflected in their product, I would say that certainly HRP know how to make a good looking, attractive, and somthing visually alluring. However, the issue to do with navigating means this site would, within 10 seconds, lose a number of inexperienced users by not knowing what to do. OK, there is a help button, but who wants to read instructions on using a website?!

In terms of target market, I'd expect customers wanting a high calibre of graphically acute design to be able to manage to get through and find the information they want. Yes, it makes a site so much more when it looks stunning, but not being able to see the other amazing techniques used and so on, because you simply can't see the arrows, is a real error of ways. Therefore, colour schemes and seeing what you are meant to do is fundamental, to the successfulness of a site... so memo to self: bear this in mind!

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