thebreakfast.org - New Design

[bdfreetuna]

I believe in the Live As Is thread, when people were having glitchy issues with the site and it wasn\'t working with FF / IE / Chrome accurately, I stated a bunch of obvious bug fixes and suggestions how to improve the site.

The web developer either saw the comments or was already intending to fix these issues... although I can\'t believe it wasn\'t tested in FF before going live

That said, I pretty much adore the new site from a design and basic functionality point of view. The coding is also done in a modern and professional way. ZERO Flash elements with that much interactivity is the way forward.

Kudos, indeed. Elements of this site have influenced some of my own work. I think it\'s downright sexy.

That said, integration with breakfast.info , archive.org , setlists , and using http://www.thebreakfast.ORG as a default login portal for http://www.thebreakfast.INFO are still easy enough things to do that I feel would make the new site much more effective. There\'s no longer a reason the fan board should be totally separate from the website. Especially a new website this good.

Overall though, I\'m impressed The Breakfast or their management or whoever managed to get such quality and sleek-looking work done.

Kudos! Integrate the message boards, and have .info redirect to .org to login, keep setlists updated, and have a panel with links to shows up on archive.org..... and by all means offer to sell Deuce, Real Radio, and Moxie Epoxy online (still got rights to that?)... I think the original PB album is basically defunct except for existing copies due to ownership issues... no?

Also the splash page with the big "Live As Is" album cover is not necessary IMO. Just have it go right to the main page where it is already prominently displayed and impossible to miss. Making people take that "extra click" (especially when the link to continue is the smallest text) is pretty much a mistake and makes the site look incomplete. At the very least I\'d put a 5 second redirect to the main page script in there. Better yet, just go straight to the home page. This will also greatly improve search engine optimization to have the home page content on the "index.html / index.php" splash page.

But yeah, the stuff I mentioned + adding everything possible to "Merch" would give the site way more traffic, better search engine standings, and make the band and community appear more organized and active than otherwise.

Not sure what budget limitations there are for additional changes and also what kind of update policy the web design company works with.... but trust me these are not really hard things to implement, shouldn\'t cost much extra if at all.

If the site is not going to be updated regularly or whatnot I cannot host a site like this for free, but can do it cheaply and keep it up to date and implement additional features for a discount. If I could do it for free I would but I can certainly do things for deep discounts and stay on top of updates mostly for free..

yakity yak

Great site. 9/10. Easy to make a solid 10/10 though

[FreeSpirit]

Also the splash page with the big "Live As Is" album cover is not necessary IMO. Just have it go right to the main page where it is already prominently displayed and impossible to miss. Making people take that "extra click" (especially when the link to continue is the smallest text) is pretty much a mistake and makes the site look incomplete. At the very least I\'d put a 5 second redirect to the main page script in there. Better yet, just go straight to the home page. This will also greatly improve search engine optimization to have the home page content on the "index.html / index.php" splash page.

You make some great points, but I disagree w/ you on this one - I like the newest album artwork being prominent on the front page... keeps things fresh and new.  I only wish it mentioned that the album shown is "for sale" on the merch page!

But yeah, the stuff I mentioned + adding everything possible to "Merch" would give the site way more traffic, better search engine standings, and make the band and community appear more organized and active than otherwise.

^ already in the works

[bdfreetuna]

You make some great points, but I disagree w/ you on this one - I like the newest album artwork being prominent on the front page... keeps things fresh and new.  I only wish it mentioned that the album shown is "for sale" on the merch page!

Google Analytics and other similar software makes it clear that for each page someone has to click through to get to the main content, the less likely they will even get to the main content.

It\'s known as the "Rule of Three Clicks"... if people have to click more than 3 times to get where they expect to be, the vast majority are gone.

In this case it\'s only 1 click but the link to "continue to the main site" is small and obscured by the giant album artwork and text below it. I\'d call this a "1.5" click.

Without running analytics on the site and comparing what it would be like, page visits for the home page vs. the splash screen Album page (ideally you want 100% to get at least to the home page) I can\'t say a certain % are simply leaving rather than continuing on. But my evaluation of this as it\'s set up right now is that I\'d imagine 10%-15% of visitors get no further than the album slash page.

Ask the site admin for a report of the google analytics. I bet my estimate is pretty damn close

Now if you had an auto redirect script that made it so it would go to the home page after like 5 seconds, you\'d probably get close to a 98% rate of ppl making it to the home page. Vast improvement.

[Vassillios]

Also the splash page with the big "Live As Is" album cover is not necessary IMO. Just have it go right to the main page where it is already prominently displayed and impossible to miss. Making people take that "extra click" (especially when the link to continue is the smallest text) is pretty much a mistake and makes the site look incomplete. At the very least I\'d put a 5 second redirect to the main page script in there. Better yet, just go straight to the home page. This will also greatly improve search engine optimization to have the home page content on the "index.html / index.php" splash page.

You make some great points, but I disagree w/ you on this one - I like the newest album artwork being prominent on the front page... keeps things fresh and new.  I only wish it mentioned that the album shown is "for sale" on the merch page!

I like both ideas... and think that the splash page should have a quick flash animation involving the album artwork and a clip of a song from the album. make it last 15-30 seconds and then automatically redirect to the main content. visual whoop-dee-doo\'s can impress many.

[GLuft3]

Great comments, Tuna.  Definitely a leap forward.  Hope they are listening.

[bdfreetuna]

I like both ideas... and think that the splash page should have a quick flash animation involving the album artwork and a clip of a song from the album. make it last 15-30 seconds and then automatically redirect to the main content. visual whoop-dee-doo\'s can impress many.

As a Flash developer, I almost refuse to use Flash anymore. It\'s got massive widespread adoption (98%+ for at least Flash 9.0) but most of the same things can be done quicker and more backwards compatibly with javascripts. Once the rest of the browsers catch up to FF 3.5, Flash is going the way of the animated .GIF ... at least I hope!

IMO the main page is the visual whoop-dee-doo and since you see the album prominantly on the main page anyway the spash album page is pretty much useless and statistically deters people from even getting to the main page.

[inthewhitelodge]

If I were perusing the net at this site, I may be deterred from going to the actual main page as well...but seriously, if people like the band, they shouldn\'t have much of a concern against clicking to get to the main page.

[Spacey]

I say keep it as a "splash" page or whatever it is referred to as for the remainder of the tour. They are trying to sell it.