Linkers,
I happened to visit the Archicentre web site today, and it receives
my nomination for inclusion in the Link Hall of Shame:
http://www.archicentre.com.au/
The site is totally Flashed and has some interesting *ahem* features:
Some of the drop-down menus don't do anything when you click on them.
Archichat->Ask an Architect, for example.
Every time I went to a new page the site's home page poped up in front
of the main window. That intro sequence is bad enough the first time,
but by the 10th time I was ready to scream.
There's a nice warning on the "order an inspection" page that "clicking
on proceed means that you have agreed to the terms and conditions set
out". Unfortunately those terms and conditions read in their entirety
"<p align="left"></p>".
All the panels which I assume are supposed to have scrollable text in
them just contain "<p align="left"></p>"
I guess there's a spot there for a list of fact sheets to appear. I
have a horrible feeling that even if that list *did* appear it would be
a list of PDF files!
The Press Centre link is actually a button. I waved my cursor around
over it for ages trying to get the menu to pop up. Once you work out
you have to click on it, the page that comes up (the only HTML page in
the site) is rather, err, uninspiring.
If you fill in one of the "book an inspection" pages and click submit
you get taken to a nice Microsoft IIS generic error page: "HTTP 405 -
Resource not allowed Internet Information Services". And this is
probably a generic Flash feature, but I couldn't copy the nice long
message I had just typed into the Flash form field and paste it into
my email program. Aargghh!!
There are no contact details on the site, so you can't even tell them
how bad the site is. By viewing the raw data from one of the .swf's I
found the email address info@archicentre.com.au -- does this procedure
fall foul of copyright legislation? I just *gasp* reverse engineered
the Flash file to extract the email address!
I think I know who built a lemon (in-joke for those gluttons for
punishment who went and viewed the site).
I really don't think these problems can be attributed to the fact that
I refuse to use Explorer and a PC. My Mac and Netscape generally serve
me quite well.
...Richard.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:03 EST