Fantasma Website?

[MaxNY]

After today's press (2-15-03) on the CBS Morning Show I Googled Fantasma, but did not find a direct link??? Mark my words... would you Roger that?

[Oakes]

I am pleased to announce that the Fantasma web site is now live...

http://www.fantasmatoys.com
or
http://www.fantasmamagic.com

It was developed by myself ( Fovea Design ) and one of the designers on the Fantasma team. Still a work in progress, but most of the meat is there. Don't think the URL's been submitted to all the search engines as of yet.

Enjoy!

Ryan Oakes
New York, NY

[Richard Kaufman]

Hi Ryan,
The website looks good but there are problems with it:
I can't see the bottom of each page and there is no vertical scroll bar.
When looking at the product line, you have small up and down arrows to click on: the product line CREEPS up so slowly that it is really tedious. It should pop up to frame each new item and its accompanying text each time someone clicks on the arrow, or function as a slide show. But the way it works now, no one is going to have the patience while each item creeps/scrolls upward.
I use Netscape: are these issues related to that?
There are also some typographical errors in the text! :)

[pduffie]

Hi Ryan

The pages linked to the blue and purple buttons (buttons 1 and 4)fall off the bottom and I can't access the down arrows. I know they're there because I looked at the site in 1024x768 resolution to see what I was missing.

I use a screen resolution of 800x600. Browser Internet Explorer 6.

I didn't find the controlled scrolling that I could use as annoying as Richard did. But if there were lot of text, it could become so.

It's a great looking site.

Best Wishes

Peter

[Guest]

Hi Ryan,

The site does look wonderful but i'm not sure how practical the design is. The viewing area where the products and descriptive text are displayed is too restricted. Based on the current design, if anyone clicks on the 'Magic' link in the Product's section there's no indication as to what products are available and how many there are UNLESS one scrolls through each and everyone of them. The same applies to the other links as well. You need to be able to see at a glance what's on offer - displaying just one or two items at a time is going to frustrate people.

Also, the opening splash page is designed for viewing with the Flash plug-in. Is there an alternate page for those who don't have the plug-in on their computers or can they just skip this page?

Sorry for sounding overly critical - i'm just trying to think like a potential customer.

HT

[Steve Hook]

Ryan:

Absolutely awesome site. Congratulations!

Luckily, I didn't have any browser/resolution problems but I agree with HT and Richard that scrolling through all the products is not as desirable as having a list to click on.

Richard: scrolling was slow? Do you have high speed internet?

Steve H

[Pete McCabe]

Ryan,

I visited the site. It looks very nice but I think you have some serious problems that need correcting. Please take this as constructive advice from a user and prospective customer.

The flash animation on the opening page is LOUD and you can't turn the sound off. Also you can't skip past it if you've seen it before. You should include both skip and mute buttons.

The choice to have the items on sub-pages displayed in software-controlled scrolling boxes with no thumb is, frankly, horrible. Try to imagine someone who visits your site for a second time to see something at the bottom of one of the longer scrolls. Your design will force them to sit through an incredibly painful scroll to get to the information they want.

This is a very common problem in both web design and marketing in general. Many things are set up to be read once but not for easy reference the second or third time. I think you will want to include some way for someone who is returning to your site to go as quickly as possible to what they are looking for.

Finally, I think the text that tells you what the little hypno-buttons will take you to should be closer to the buttons themselves.

If you make these changes you'll have a site whose quality begins to approach that of your products.

[Richard Kaufman]

I have a DSL line and the scrolling was slower than ants marching toward a sandwich.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Richard Kaufman:
I have a DSL line and the scrolling was slower than ants marching toward a sandwich.

Richard, Are you using Netscape on Windows or a Mac? I'm on DSL and had no problems with the speed, although as others have pointed out, the interface logic needs work.

Best,

Geoff

[Dustin Stinett]

I don't know what makes these things go, but I do know that I'm on a T-1 line right now (I'm working; can't you tell???) and it builds and scrolls kinda slowly - but not terribly so. As far as the resolution goes, I just hit the "F11" key to go to "full page" mode and everything was visible.

Very impressive site, Ryan: Good luck!

Dustin

[Guest]

Every browser won't render every site correctly or at speed. That's why I keep a few browsers handy, in case I run into a site that isn't standards compliant; just switch browsers and keep going. FrontPage, for example, is notorious for generating web pages that comply with NO standards, and deliberately break Netscape browsers.

Any site that says any crap about "This site is best viewed with (fill in the blank)" is a site to avoid.

Yeah, I do this stuff for a living. Feh.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Geoff

[Richard Kaufman]

Feh yourself.
I use Netscape on Windows.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Richard Kaufman:
Feh yourself.
I use Netscape on Windows.

That's just asking for trouble. MS does things deliberately to break Netscape. That's one reason they've been in court with the DOJ for the last four or five years. Try Opera as a second browser, or even (ugh) IE.

Happy surfing,

Geoff