It's been a while since my last post, but we're all back at uni now, so it's time to get my butt back into gear and plough on. There's a lot to do... here's hoping I don't have a mental breakdown when Flash won't play nicely!!
One of the ideas I pitched for the part two showcase was a night sky over a landscape. This site which I found today, by Northwest Mutual, I think pretty much nails what I had thought up. If I could pull it off, it would be AMAZING.
You are given a free roaming, horizontal landscape. It all looks very picturesque, and colourful. There is an evident depth to the image, making it seem more realistic, and not just a flat image. The detail, even in things like the grass is what caught my eye. Overall, it just builds up a very nicely crafted piece. The precision to detail is right, the colours are right, the images are right and in keeping with the design.
Placing the mouse towards the extremities of the picture slowly pans the viewpoint across. To me, this was all very natural and intuitive. Regardless of where you are, a few lines of text hover in the centre of the picture, which provide you options.
Firstly, you select what sort of vehicle you want to use, to 'let yourself go'. Options include a catapult, rocket, hot airballoon and submarine. Choosing one of the options from the drop down means the camera pans instantly to that location on the horizontal plane.
You then have the choice of what type of topic you wish to deal with. You can either choose this from the next drop down menu, or click and drag the respective character who appear at the bottom of the screen. Doing so is quite fun, as the person follows your mouse, and flails and flops their arms and legs all over the place until you drop them into the vehicle.
You then get a launch button, which on pressing, launches a little animation of the button being pressed, or a level being pulled and it cuts to an impressive render of your chosen form of transport blasting off, or submerging.
Finally, the real purpose of the site is revealed, you are presented with the 'business' side. The company are trying to sell you a product/service related to their bank/building/insurance services. So, from there, you are provided options which link to the main official company site.
Northwest Mutual have gone about selling their product in quite a different way in this promotional piece. When considering the relevabce, instead of just saying, save for retirement, here are our policies, they have gone about it in a more emotive, personable manner - are you worried about retirement funds -> blast them away -> here's the policy to do it. It sort of disguises the fact that they are trying to sell you something! I like this spin they have put on it to sell their product.
However not all is perfect. The last page of letyourselfgo.com, to me, was quite overpowering in information, compared to the calmness and spaciousness of the previous screens. It isn't that well laid out either, seeming sort of cluttered in the centre.
You get a statistics table telling you the %s that have the same 'worries' as yourself. But the main get me to the site to buy it links aren't that clearly set out. They tell of what you need, but not in a way that works 100% efficiently on the eye, which is a shame.
Navigation wise, the selection process is how you make your way through the site. You don't even get a traditional bar displaying navigation options, apart from legalities that must be shown. Again, I've commented on it before, this could make or break a site. Certainly for younger, more entertainable market, the site is fine, in fact it's fun and interesting. This method may actually be their means of attracting a younger market, trying to seek them out. However, for an older user, this site may seem a gimmic, and become irritating by not being able to access the information without waiting for loading screens and aniamtions so on.
In terms of the interaction elements, I am impressed. It doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen before, but the overall semblance of it all, is what I liked: the side scrolling, free nature of it, in particular. It looks nice also, the detail in the blades of grass, the depth portrayed by the layering.
This has presented me with a difficulty now. I was planning on going down the detective route and using a 3d rendered office piece inside a frame. Now though, this site has shown me that the star constellations idea could be technically savvy and look good too. Hmm.... dilemma...
@
No comments:
Post a Comment