[LINK] Australia Post's new web site preview

[Tom Worthington]

Scott Howard wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Tom Worthington
> <tom.worthington at tomw.net.au> wrote:
>> I was mystified by the animated graphic...
> 
> Have you actually used the Web in the past few years? ...

Yes, occasionally. I do see odd things on web pages, but usually ignore 
them.

> ... The "numbers" are image currently being shown... The play/pause button on the end allows you
> to stop or restart the rotation ...

I did not recognise the pause button as such, the pause symbol  was not 
centred in the square, it was in the top left corner. I assumed that 
what I was seeing was a double quote mark from some text which did not 
fit in the box. Also it moved to the bottom when I put the pointer over 
it, which a pause button does not normally do.

> cnn.com, whitehouse.gov, dell.com, hp.com - the first 4 websites I
> picked at random and they all do exactly the same thing. ...

Of the four web pages you cited, only one, hp.com, displayed any 
animated graphics on my screen. The HP site was also the only one with 
numbered boxes on an image. These were much more subtle that on the 
Australia Post site, to the point were they were almost invisible. Also 
the play controls were recognisable as such. In any case I doubt that 
most people would ever see them, so no harm is done by having these 
pointless controls. The image did not change as rapidly as on the 
Australia Post site and so was less distracting.

> I'm presuming that the images shown at the moment are place-holders
> which would be used for more relevant and 'click-worthy' images ...

This may be "marketing 101" but it still does not look like a good idea
to me, nor than common. The HP example does not make the case, as most 
people would not notice the controls. The ability to be able to choose 
between slides with marketing slogans on them does not seem to be 
something which would be of interest to customers, just marketing people.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890