Cambridge Common Restaurant Website

[plumtreeblossom]

First, click and listen:

http://www.cambridgecommonrestaurant.com/main.html

Just e-mailed:

Dear Manager and Dear Webmaster,

I feel a need to tell you that the song that auto-plays on your website is hands-down the worst song I've ever heard in any musical genre in my entire life. I'm glad it's possible to mute it while trying to read your website, but I hesitate at the idea of actually going to your restaurant for fear that "music" similar to this is what plays in your dining room. Your website would be much more usable and inviting without this noise that sounds like a cat in grand mal seizure accompanied by a 2-year-old on guitar.

I hope this song isn't representative of your dining room's ambient music, as I'm sure I would otherwise like to try dining in your establishment. I just don't want to have to bring earplugs.

Thanks,
-Mare

Comments

[beowabbit]

Wow, that’s pretty awful! But it’s not the worst thing about that web site.

(1) Whole thing in Flash. That means, for instance, that I can’t link to the appetizers menu in a text message suggesting it to a friend I’m making plans with. Also means that the entire web site will not work at all for a large number of people — iPad and iPhone users, people on certain kinds of netbooks, people who have Flash turned off because it’s almost exclusively used for animated ads, etc.

(2) Whole thing in Flash. This means that the browser can’t adjust the font sizes. This means that if you have a super-high-resolution monitor, the web site is a tiny illegible postage stamp in the middle of your screen, but if you try to browse it on your phone (assuming your phone supports flash) you can only see a tiny fraction of the content and the site is basically unusable.

(3) Whole thing in Flash. As mentioned above, this means that people with low vision can’t increase the font size or adjust the contrast. It also means that people with no vision can’t use screen readers.

(4) Throbbing bitmaps with no antialiasing. When you hover over the logo on the front “page” (or what would be the front page if Flash supported linkable pages), the bitmap logo throbs. But it’s a bitmap, and each size is a bitmap. This produces really weird effects. I suspect that this problem is a side effect of the fact that you’re tempted to do dumb, pointless things with animation if, you know, the whole thing is in Flash.

(5) Whole thing in Flash. This means that after the Revolution, their web developers will all have been guillotined, and they won’t have anybody to maintain their site. Also, it means that after the Revolution, their web server and all their computers will have been seized and crushed, and they won’t have anything to run their web site on.

(6) Have I mentioned that the whole thing is in Flash?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

You should send them this, love. Their email is on their "Contact" page (in Flash, of course). Especially the bit about the site being inaccessible to people using screen readers.

thorbol, you should say something too. Email me if you can't get their addy off the site.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, please send me that addy if you can. I did go there to listen yesterday, and don't think I was able to actually *read* anything.

I was too amused to be as horrified as you were when I listened. I was going to write to you that I might prefer that screeching musical mutation squared to the dull repetitive bit on www.ashmontgrill.com: it used to go on and on and on. That part has changed there, however. What has not changed is my complete inability to read the menu, though the method of unavailability did change.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

although I will note that the 'can't adjust the font sizes' is not entirely true - you can right-click on a pc, squiggle-click on a mac, to get 'zoom in' on flash sites, which does indeed allow you to make the fonts and everything larger.

[ron_newman]

On my mac, using Safari, command-+ (actually, command-=) will embiggen the fonts.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Somebody who isn't web savvy, who just wants to get something to eat, might not know that, though.

[marius23.livejournal.com]

While your points are all entirely valid for this website, I do feel compelled to point out that it is possible to create a decent site in Flash, including linkable pages and screen reader accessibility. However, it requires using both the proper tools and actually putting some effort into the design of the site, clearly neither of which have been done here.