Round Table did an auto-detection that forced me into using this Flash version. That nifty detection process created a form of 'mousetrapping' by putting me into an auto-forward situation where my BACK button got neutered. Way to go!

Anyhow, back to my point... I object to a web page that loads completely, then makes me wait for the navigation menu to appear. I object to my navigation menu being pulled out of a pizza oven, slathered with what looks like vinyl bumper stickers. During this wait I must disregard what Brunelleschi taught us about perspective and Newton taught us about gravity, as my almost two-dimensional pizza is extracted horizontally from the oven and then vertically turned on its side. I object to waiting in painful anticipation for the pizza slices to fall from a pan that just hangs there suspended in mid-air. I object to any web site that feels like a bad drug trip.

Tonight I ordered Papa Murphy's. At least Papa only subjects me to a tacky Flash splash page.

Posted by: Jack on July 13, 2002 01:20 AM

 

Oh! Oh! I must keep talking.

My initial disgust was so great that I never actually used the Round Table site. I just noticed how the pizza slices fall onto the plate when you click them. Notice how small the plate is and how big the Round Table pizza slices are. Marketing psychology at work. Bravo!

not.

Anyone want to hire me to ridicule their work?

Posted by: Jack on July 13, 2002 01:38 AM

 

It could be worse. A "net marketing" company like www.brandquiver.com has no f***ing clue. Did I mention it was started by the CEO of an ad company? What do you expect?

Posted by: MadMan on July 13, 2002 12:11 PM

 

I expect the casual user not to care about waiting 7 seconds for the navigation to load. It takes a few seconds for one's brain to parse a new site anyway, so by the time the navigation has come to a stop the user has just become ready to use it. Or, the user could use the many links offered in the main window before the navigation is even done loading!

Personally, I really like the metaphoric navigation. I clicked around simply because it was fun and engaging. I never even bothered to think how fake the physics were - it was just cool.

Yet, if I were a returning customer I could see how the navigation might become slow and inefficient. It bothers me that there isn't a copy of that global navigation in plain text at the bottom of each page.

Lastly, while that initial detection page does screw with the back process, after the initial bounce I automatically right clicked the back button and manually skipped over that page without thought. It could be more safely implemented, however.

Posted by: MikeC on July 13, 2002 12:47 PM

 

There's absolutely no excuse for a zero second forward. If you're using Javascript, you can use the location.replace() command so the the forwarding page is deleted from their history.* If you think you need to forward because index.jsp or whatnot is not a default type, you need to get a real web server that allows adding of default document types besides index.html. ( Apache and even IIS do)

If you've moved the home page from index.html to index.jsp, and you're afraid people have bookmarked the actual page name, then you set up a server side forward that looks like one page to the user.

Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine. Only an annoyance to me, but I have many friends who say, I hate when I get stuck on a web site. I try to explain the right click thing, but I'm not sure any of them will use it. My all-time favorite was a zero-second forward page that forwarded to itself.

You should have a page with an old-fashioned forward (with a PAUSE) and a link to the actual home page for weird browsers/PDA/Googlebot type visitors anyway.

*If you're paranoid, you will browser detect for Netscape 3 and NOT use the location.replace for it, because it will forward them to an essentially random location consisting of "www" followed by their default domain.

Posted by: Chad Lundgren on July 13, 2002 06:06 PM

 

I agree with Jack. My own pet peeve is going to a site about food and seeing a design that overwhelms what should be the centerpiece: delicious edibles. There is nothing about the Round Table Pizza site that makes me want to eat their pizza. Instead, I am nauseated by their color choice, inept and annoying navigation, forced Flash, and frames.

Compare this to a site like http://www.todai.com/ (an Asian food buffet). Their site is fairly low-key but still colorful and features their somewhat scary but popular mascot, which is evocative of their restaurant design (I'm already hungry). Their site is by no means complete and I'm not saying it's the height of design, but I do like the fact that the menu is easy to use and I get all the information I came there to find - namely, location and what kind of food I can expect.

You would think a national chain like Round Table could at least manage to put a big, glossy picture of their pizza on the front page, rather than making you focus on the clumsy navigation.

Posted by: Lydia on July 15, 2002 02:54 PM