Friday, 14 October 2011

A lengthy break.

Lengthy break is lengthy. I should really keep on top of this blog.
Anyway, we're back! Uni started again about a week ago, so naturally I have a piece of work for you. Website reviews!

Huzzah!

What you need to realise about me is that I am a car nut. I am useless when it comes to working on them, ie, mechanics, simple repairs etc, but I love how a car makes you feel. How it drives, how it looks, what it does. I am a great believer in the theory that a car is a reflection of you.

Anyway, websites!

First up, Mercedes-Benz AMG introducing their new 5.5 litre bi-turbo.

http://www.mercedes-amg.com/#/m157

Those flashy Germans. The site is all in Flash and has some very smart design features. The whole caboodle is laid out like a cube, you use arrows at either side of the page to flick it around and get to different content. It all works very well and it loads very quickly. Slick, I'd call it.
There is a slight problem with a certain part of the content on each 'page' though. The large square, furthest left. On each section, a part of the text is cut off and there no way of getting to it.
With it being Germany, the designer might have been shot already.

It's full of information, though. really crammed full but laid out so well. There are multiple galleries, videos, pictures and facts. Like; Did you know that the 5.5 litre bi-turbo puts out 875nm of torque at 2000rpm? Lovely. They are obviously very proud of their new powerplant.

The website has been optimized well too, you can choose an iPhone/mobile format (even though iPhone doesn't support Flash?), a standard format and a HD format (which is excellent, might I add).

Apart from the odd niggle or two, this has been designed well with user interactivity in mind. Very easy to use, very informative and easy on the eye.

Website Two - Audi A8L 3D.

It's those snazzy Germans again with another clever advertisement/website feature (although I have checked and Volkwagen and Porsche's wesbites are dull and lifeless).
Back to Audi. They've tried to get with the times and try their hand at 3D. Not real 3D, anaglyph 3D where you have to use those comedy red and blue glasses. There's the first problem. For you to be able to view the 3D, you need a pair of these glasses handy. And I didn't. Although you can switch the feature to 2D, but that kind of defeats the point as they've advertised that you can view the site in 3D.
And it takes ages to load in each guise. You can choose low or high bandwidth for both 2D and 3D, but even on the Uni connection which is currently running at 27.8mbps (just checked on speedtest.net), it seems to take an age to load. I have only 2mbps at home as I live in the sticks. I know I won't be usig this website there.
The design is fantastic though! It's laid out very simply and the video features that show a man flying through the air into a big leather seat, then having the Audi in question build itself around him is brilliant. Testament to the designers! You can then spin around the car and see all of the cars features inside and out. Suffice to say, the site is built in Flash.

To conclude, this site is great, but majorly flawed with excessive loading times and low-res content.

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