A friend of mine sent me a link to the new Deisel site called Diesel Heaven. The site is kind of a paradox since some elements are very well done but others just seems clumbsy. The site is hosted by a woman named Delia who guides you through the site experience. She created with full motion video and is created is one of the best examples of integrating video into Flash outside of the Vodafone sites. Unfortunately even this great work can not save the site from some big usability problems.

The first problem is that is seems that the designers only thought that people would visit this site once so quickly getting to site content is impossible. There was a content section I really liked and wanted to show to one of my co-designers so I pulled up the site and had to wait through the opening video and menu intro before I could even get the main menu to choose the content area I wanted to show him.

This leads me to the next problem which is that the main menu. The opening of the site uses technology so well but the main menu lets the production technique get in the way of the usability. I have seen menus that have used 'previous' and 'next' buttons effectively but they usually provide the user with several key things - context, alternatives and labels. When you put your current position in menu in context then you have some idea of how many options there are and you know when you have seen everything. Give the user the option of seeing a full menu so if they want to jump to a specific position they do have to hunt and scroll through the menu to get what they want. Finally, let the user see what the other item are when they are on the screen and not force them to move each item to the middle of the screen before they can see what it is.

In the end it is frustrating to see a site that has such potential get tripped up the over use of production techniques. This problem keeps the site from becoming one of the great examples of immersive web experiences like what you have seen in the Vodafone sites.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional Flash, Site review