While I agreed with your sentiments on the execution of the site – i.t.o. usability, functionality and general execution, I am really liking the illustrations on the site. I also found it a bit cumbersome to browse, and also the small animations that were added to the site was cute, but it detracted from the UX. Still cool illustrations My guess is that it was Alex Latimer who did them.

Yeah I agree with Uno – illustrations are great, site usability not so great.

I think it’s hot and a great improvement. Compelling from a visual point of view. Love the illustrations and design, well done.

Let’s face it, you’re not going to the Nando’s site only for functional things (like an airline) so a non-straightforward UI is half the fun. (Not great if stuff don’t work obviously.)

Feel your crit might be a tad harsh…

too much, too complicated. the illustrations could’ve been integrated better – they’re not the main focus of the site, yet have become it’s only saving grace. pity.

You go to a site for content, not to look at illustrations, and most definitely not to spend 10 minutes trying to find the content in the first place.

@Luke

Sure the bounce rate is high, but if you analyse traffic and have a good reason for it, then there is no problem. THey could track the internal flow quite easily (I sure as hell hope they are!).

Also, couldn’t expect the Google ranking to be sorted out properly yet, I mean, the site has only launched recently?

Lastly, who really turns off JavaScript? Most users wouldn’t even know where, and it is not normally corporate policy.

I do agree a complete flash site is not ideal from an SEO perspective, but you can still do a decent job if they built it properly.

Not arguing for the sake of arguing, just that those issues are issues which can be addresses if the site is built properly. Let’s hope they did.

Who did it anyway?

Thanks for all the comments. The problem I see here is that with the amount the client must have spent on this I don’t think they have bang for buck.

This site could have been made a lot more functional and attractive if the concept was more sound and the final application was done more thorough.

It seems this is a classic case of offline concepts being tried to fit into an online model. It just doesn’t work. Digital is a specialised skill, traditional advertising agencies seems to miss that or not understand that.

@Marc Ashwell

• the bounce rate will be high because we live in a country with massive bandwidth issues and their site forces you to wait for the entire thing to load before you can view it.

• Their Google ranking will never be sorted out because Googlebot will not be able to crawl the site in its current state.

• Googlebot does not use javascript, that is what I was referring to. If your site is inaccessible without javascript, you can kiss your seo goodbye.

• regarding their google presence, I see the old site actually had a store finder which is still in the index, but nobody has bothered to redirect the old site url’s to the new one(s?). It now takes you to a default 404 page.

http://www.nandos.co.za/restaurant_locator/index.html

The whole thing smacks of a strategic and particularly technically strategic vacuum at wherever this job was executed.

@Marc
wow, ok this is getting a bit academic.. suffice to say that my understanding of bounce rate is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate – people who arrive on your site and then leave without visiting a second page.

My mistake if the site loads in bits and pieces.. I missed that waiting for the initial loading sequence, which in the absence of any navigation and because it took so long, convinced me the entire site was coming down.

Putting a closed door on your home page just doesn’t seem like a very good metaphor to me – give the user some kind of visual cue as to what the site has to offer.

You are correct, Google has recently improved the way it indexes flash and is able to index and execute javascript. However Google engineers have stated on multiple occasions that Googlebot ignores javascript by default and that when it does crawl js content, it does so only on the most trusted sites… if this situation is changing it is doing so slowly and I think it’s safe to say that the old best practice approaches are still worth following.

Personally I wouldn’t hold my breath for this site’s faux url’s to start showing up in the index.. something like a simple alternative html navigation which could be hidden when javascript is available would solve this problem.

Good debate though, cheers

@Luke
That’s what it’s all about! Cheers! /M

Interestingly Nandos’ Australian site doesn’t seem to have made any of these mistakes, and yet they have Flash, video, a prominent store finder and illustrations, and their site just made me laugh out loud.

http://www.nandos.com.au/

First off, Luke is right, that landing page is redundant. Poor execution of Flash detection and frankly the argument “who has Javascript disabled” just doesn’t cut it. The fact is we live in a world where different devices are preferred by different people for different reasons. If you want your brand to truly reach people, you need to make the effort to support the 2% that might not have JS enabled or that might actually access the site from an iPhone or any similar device with no Flash plugin. Imagine you are absolutely famished and just want a jucy Nandos burger with Mild Piri-Piri and you try to access the site from your wap enabled phone. What would your experience be if a blank page shows up?

I really like the illustrations too but it’s a pity that not many people will stick around to see it due to the structure of the site. Also, I think Nandos as a brand is perfect for a full Flash site cause once you are in – it introduces a fun way of interacting (can’t believe I just used the word ‘fun’).

The assumption that full Flash sites is always bad is only correct if no Progressive Enhancement is used. The inclusion of browser integration is therefor equally important to allow search engines to index pages. Google only indexes the first 100 lines of JS and its support is very limited. Also, the recent indexing advancements of Flash pages with Google’s headless player, doesn’t mean we quite know what content will be indexed and how. Using Progressive Enhancement you know the spider will get the exact same content as a user will.

Why is all this technical jargon important? Cause without it the accessibility fails. If the accessibility fails, the reach fails to a large extent.

As a Flash developer myself, I feel it is the responsibility of the Flash dev to bring this knowledge to the table and make a case. If any constraint means this approach can’t be done, then so be it.

Once.

Really annoying website. Going elsewhere for some food.