Why web designers should not be let near engineering sites... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2010, 10:34:28 pm
content: Imagine Dave doing that "Ohhh maaaan! UNBELIEVABLE!" face and holding his hands up in the air.Many component manufacturers' web sites are dire, but they eventually become relatively workable. The hope is that eventually they will upgrade here and there, and come up with an efficient site that does what you want. ST Microelectronics (http://www.st.com) seem to have taken the other route, the web equivalent of a TV makeover show which slaps paint on the walls and wheels in some hideous furniture. If you can, navigate your way to the embedded micro / Cortex selection page. Now wonder at how and why they have managed to cram a huge selection table into around 5% of the available monitor space. But hey! That's okay! Because they now have annoying side bars that take up even more room and slide around, taking up more of the already minute table space. this is what it looks like when you open those side bars:Oh. Nice!STMicro might like to check the concept of "Usability" the next time they give their site a makeover. Hre's a clue ST: ASK YOUR USERS! Don't just get some graphic designer to come up with some expensive fancy animation in flash and get it signed off by managers who don't know what the hell they are doing!

author: squeezee
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2010, 05:51:51 am
content: Yeah the site is all kinds of terrible, and their parametric/table views are just madness. (the filter navigation is a big WTF)

author: TheWelly888
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2010, 11:53:30 am
content: To be honest I don't think it was terrible, just a bit OTT with the graphics.On some pages of the ST site, look at the bottom right corner which says feedback - make use of that!

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2010, 09:42:41 pm
content: Don't worry, I haveMaking a site that is purely designed for a 1024x768 screen is madness.

author: sonicj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 21, 2010, 04:43:39 pm
content: ha! i ran into this cluster**** of a website the other night! i forget what happened exactly, but i do remember it failing to retrieve the info i was after.flash is terrible for this sort of thing. i want my internet fast and functional!-sj

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 21, 2010, 09:45:29 pm
content: I hate flash and the like with a passion. It takes seconds for a tick to appear on RS's component chooser and that's on a decent spec pc. in fact my work pc interprets pages slower than they download these days because of all the crap that gets put in and web designers seem to have little care for resources. sure my pc can handle flash, but when every other graphical element is flash which seems to be very poor on efficiency tats a lot of processing power being demanded for not alot.I think pages should still be designed for 1024X786, I use this res on my laptop and have no choice and itwill be the resolution of many portable PC's used by engineers on the move, I can certainly draw schematics and PCB's with 1024x786 so I should be able to order parts too.

author: sonicj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2010, 01:03:12 am
content: btw, for the mac users who don't know...ClickToFLashis awesome!st should read this:steve jobs on flash