Further Website Research

Carrying on from yesterday here's the rest of my research notes:

http://www.net-reality.org/

Good: Neil Jenkins piece "Exquisite Corpse" really stood out to me as the whole piece seems to be based around key literature and words the viewers have input being combined.
This allows the viewer to have an affect on what the content is and become a part of it, a feature we could add to ours though on a less complex basis.
Stanza's piece looked really interesting but sadly, like most of the other websites, it didn't load for me as I used Safari web browser so even though it looked good I wasn't able to further my research without lots of hassle etc.

Bad: But to be honest from what others have said it seems I haven't missed much.
With the websites and pieces I could see, this view was pretty much verified as well, mainly because most of the work was very abstract and similar to the previous website http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/ with the bright colours and text, although with much more purpose and explanation with these pieces!
The layout did not inspire me to delve deeper into the different "online/offline" versions etc. either as it seemed very standard and basic, as if it was done not to promote the pieces but just to contain them.

http://www.incident.net/works/timessquare/

Good: Really interesting use of live webcams, all contained in a very simplistic and straight to the point website.
Unlike the boring standard layout of http://www.net-reality.org/, this site makes the main content the focus of the whole website and doesn't let the viewers attention wander to anything else, because there is very little else which pops out to the viewer.
The interactivity is enjoyable and quite surreal to look at Times Square live whilst it dark and cold here in Plymouth!
The titles are bold and subtly highlighted when selected so though the design is not O.T.T on engaging the viewer, it works effectively to filter the attention onto the main piece.

Bad: Due to a slow internet connection the video footage was very jerky so I didn't really get the full experience but from what I saw it was really good. Slow internet connection is a problem which is inevitable to be honest so with our own website we will have to discuss ways to get around this and find a solution so the viewer can get the full experience of being in the market.

http://www.viewsfromthegroundfloor.com/

Good: The use of video alongside the same theme and text style as the website ties the two together. The layout is simple but works well to direct to the content.

Bad: The content and layout seemed very dated and could have been done much better in my opinion. The bright text against a black background gets really irritating and is very hard to read so it was only at the last second that I saw the warning that it will crash Safari.
Luckily it didn't crash it but even though the theme of the site connects with the video, a more simplistic and bold theme would benefit here instead of the difficult style putting me off exploring the content further than the initial video.
With our own work an simplistic and easy to understand format is definitely starting to seem the best way forward.

http://amanita-design.net/samorost-1/

Wow. This website was by far my favourite to work with and was just beautiful in all areas.
Good: The visual content is absolutely stunning and really sucks the viewer in to the storyline of the game, in fact right at the beginning when the second planet is going to collide with the first I actually felt sorry for the little guy!
The game itself though incredibly surreal and random is very easy to navigate and each scene links to the next with ease. The loading times are quick so the action keeps going and the puzzling interactivity to try and get the man to carry on his journey really makes you think and get involved, an aspect that maybe our own website could benefit from by incorporating games of some kind?
The layout is superb as there is only 2 links at the top for the creators etc. leaving the entire site to exploring this strange new story and discovering what might be going on. This greatly pushes all the emphasis onto finding the interactive areas of the first planet and beginning the story free of distractions from other areas of the website.

Bad: The only downside I can possibly think of is that some of the parts of the level were hard to do, both to think about and secondly to find the interactive areas. This is most likely part of the overall experience but for me it got a tiny bit tedious and took some of the glory away from such a brilliant piece.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/nauman/

Good: The use of sound is very impressive and there is plenty to play with, ranging from many different emotions and overall very effective at creating an effect on me, even if it was a negative and disturbed one. All the different voices when running the mouse down across them all became very unnerving and although personally I didn't like the piece, I can admire that it took a lot of work and is effective on me.

Bad: A downside is that the layout is rubbish. It is so bland and boring, which is probably why it works so well to unnerve me, but still even if you're going for a basic emotionless website so the content does the talking (literally!) there was so much more which could be done than just plain greys.
The text also as each piece was spoken ran too fast to it became harder to understand what some of them were saying, particularly the "piss and die, eat and die" etc. part, it was only by listening a fair few times I could understand what they were saying!

http://arounder.com/

Good: The final website I looked at and to be honest it was pretty much just Google Maps but with more areas such as inside certain buildings as well. Never the less I chose to look at Cyprus as I'm going on holiday there in the summer and from what Arounder has shown me in very high quality it looks good! Though I said this is like Google Maps it is a much more advanced version and of a much higher quality in some areas. The layout is simple and easy to use, just choose a place and off you go.
The fonts and text are all very easy to read and so working out how to use the software wasn't hard in the slightest.

Bad: The only real downsides are that 1) apart from being a map there isn't much else that is interactive and this becomes boring quickly, and 2) the fact that the camera is way too fast and hard to control. It's all well and good showing wherever you've chosen to look at in high quality satellite imagery, but if you can't slow the camera to look at it, there's not much point.
Other than that an enjoyable website which was also very helpful and informative as well, again something we want our viewer to feel as well.

Having researched all these websites and seen what is good and bad when it comes to this area of the media, there are many questions and areas of development and interactivity I'd like to bring up with my group and see how they feel about it as well.
That's all for tonight but today we finished collecting all our content ready to be put into a website tomorrow so stay tuned for all our sketches, notes and diagrams to be up and available to you soon.
Take care,
Joe