Feedback on demo

Hi Everyone,
I have created a demo of our electronic design application. I am looking for
some feedback/constructive criticism of the demo, particularily parts that are
not clear the first time you watch them. I have watched the thing so many times
that it's hard to tell. You can watch the demo here http://www.hevday.com/demo.html

Regards,
Andrew Ward.

 

It was taking too long on my dialup, and I have no idea what it is I am
downloading. It would help to have a brief description, and maybe some
small screen shots, so I know a bit more and have something to read while
the demo is loading. I assume it's a windows movie of some sort, or maybe
Powerpoint?

Paul E. Schoen
www.pstech-inc.com

 

I have created a demo of our electronic design application.

Yup. The totality of text associated with the page:
http://www.google.com/search?q=http://www.hevday.com/demo.html

What the page looks like with the Oh-ain't-I-so-cool crap stripped out:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:XKVb3xskAmoJ:www.hevday.com/demo.html+&strip=1

The page was obviously constructed by an idiot
who thinks that everyone has bandwidth to burn
and that everyone is willing to buy a pig in a poke.

It's been said before:
If you can't easily get in the front door, you can bet the rest is
crap.

A good read for all wanna-be Web designers:
http://evpc.biz/personal/soapbox/morons_in_webspace

 

Thanks for your comments Paul. Normally someone would access the demo from the
link on the bottom of the home page http://www.hevday.com so they would know at
least a little about what they were about to watch.
It is a Macromedia Flash demo, and I think it downloads to 60% in the browser
before starting.
Basically the demo runs through our application, showing how you can watch/debug
a digital circuit while it is running inside the FPGA. You can of course read
about this on the website, but I think it needs a demo to really get the message
across because it is something that has not been available before in digital
logic design, so it would be easy for someone to miss the point.

 

According to Google Analytics, only 11% of people visiting our site have dialup
and 77% have either cable/dsl or corporate bandwidth. So if I can give those 77%
a better understanding of the product through a Flash demo, then I think its a
good idea.

 

I waited about 10 seconds with my 2Mb ADSL, saw that it had only loaded
15%, and gave up. Not even a hint about what your product actually is,
so why should I wait?

Paul Burke

 

Greetings,

My two cents, no refunds:

I suspect that at least 77% of your site's visitors also have a kidney
that they could do without, but that doesn't mean they're visiting
your site so as to be able to waste it away, too.

1) "Flash demo" and "good idea" in the same sentence: is any further
comment necessary?

2) Let's be brutally honest: if you can't create enticing text to
describe your product, why do you suppose you have the capability of
producing a Flash movie that will? Possibly, it might work on the
unwashed masses <g>, but hurling a Flash movie at we members of the
intelligentsia is no way to win friends and (favorably) influence
people.

3) If you knocked on my door, and I immediately opened the door and
proceeded to ignore you whilst I set up my AV equipment so I could
show you a documentary about me, would you consider that a "good
idea"?

4) With "ActiveX controls and plug-ins" disabled in IE, your web site
is a totally blank screen. Is that also a good idea?

5) I have DSL, and I gave up at "12%".

 

I have DSL.

I hate blinky/bouncy crap and spyware.

I don't go to a web site so the designer can play games on my screen.
I run with cookies, javascript, and flash disabled.

You can provide a lot of information with simple text. I like
pictures within reason.

 

Sorry, my original posting should have mentioned that you could look at the home
page http://www.hevday.com to first find out about what the demo would be about.

 

Even though you've had several replies saying it takes much to long to
download you insisted that it was worth waiting for so I became really
curious. I waited 5 minutes for it to get to 60% and start(I'm on an
Internet backbone so the bottleneck is your end)..

I got to page 6 and got really bored. You showed how to drive the
schematic which is not even slightly unique.

I strongly suggest that it takes less than 20 seconds to start and that
you are showing unique things by page 3 at the most.

Colin (who is no longer at all curious)