Hi forum, been awhile. I asked this awhile ago but I didn’t get the answer I was looking for, so I’ll go into more detail this time. I’m a full time musician who’s hoping to start a semi-successful business making sites for my fellow musicians, but there’s one design issue I can’t make peace with.
I’m noticing a lot of my peers have full-flash websites. I don’t mean sites with deep-linking either, good old-fashioned one swf file sites. I don’t actually have experience building flash websites myself, since I’ve been warned of the issues-bad SEO;large, slow-loading files, etc. But there’s one thing these sites can do which html sites can’t: they can embed an mp3 player in the page that continues to play uninterrupted while the user navigates the site.
Let me address another topic before it comes up: I personally am not in favor of auto-play mp3 players. If a client wants that, fine, I’ll give it to them, but I think it’s an imposition, though I understand they want to sell their music. I believe in making the player as conspicuous as possible with being ugly, but beyond that is the user’s choice.
If the player is on one page of the site, the user is stuck there if he wants to listen. The obvious and only alternative it seems is to have a “pop-out” mp3 player. This isn’t too bad, but it’s still kind of ugly and the user might not want to this. Why? Because as he navigates the rest of the site, the player is buried under it and he has to fish it out when he doesn’t want to listen anymore, which is a bit of a hassle. (I’ve actually seen on otherwise decent sites, auto-start mp3 player embedded on every page so the same song reloads and restarts every page. That’s a great way to keep people around, huh?! )
I’ve also seen sites using frames to keep the mp3 player there. I have no experience designing with frames because, again, I’ve been advised against it. My understanding is that if someone links to a page within your site, they will only get one frame, and they will not get the player.
So, does anyone have an idea of better implementation of mp3 players, or am I stuck with the “pop-out” option?
I’m noticing a lot of my peers have full-flash websites. I don’t mean sites with deep-linking either, good old-fashioned one swf file sites. I don’t actually have experience building flash websites myself, since I’ve been warned of the issues-bad SEO;large, slow-loading files, etc. But there’s one thing these sites can do which html sites can’t: they can embed an mp3 player in the page that continues to play uninterrupted while the user navigates the site.
Let me address another topic before it comes up: I personally am not in favor of auto-play mp3 players. If a client wants that, fine, I’ll give it to them, but I think it’s an imposition, though I understand they want to sell their music. I believe in making the player as conspicuous as possible with being ugly, but beyond that is the user’s choice.
If the player is on one page of the site, the user is stuck there if he wants to listen. The obvious and only alternative it seems is to have a “pop-out” mp3 player. This isn’t too bad, but it’s still kind of ugly and the user might not want to this. Why? Because as he navigates the rest of the site, the player is buried under it and he has to fish it out when he doesn’t want to listen anymore, which is a bit of a hassle. (I’ve actually seen on otherwise decent sites, auto-start mp3 player embedded on every page so the same song reloads and restarts every page. That’s a great way to keep people around, huh?! )
I’ve also seen sites using frames to keep the mp3 player there. I have no experience designing with frames because, again, I’ve been advised against it. My understanding is that if someone links to a page within your site, they will only get one frame, and they will not get the player.
So, does anyone have an idea of better implementation of mp3 players, or am I stuck with the “pop-out” option?
