Why do so many well known architects have such badly designed websites?
I'll give you some examples.
Grimshaw Architects
Zaha Hadid
Richard Rogers
Gumuchdijan Architects
In fact, just about every architect's webpage I've visited had an annoying flash based page.
Problems with flash:
A: Hard to navigate. you can't press back, without leaving the site.
B: You Can't link to a certain page.
C: You need to install software to view them
D: You can't save images. Seeing as these sites are basically ads for the firms, you'd think they'd want you saving their work.
E: Site isn't indexed on Google. I searched for "gumuchdjian think tank boathouse" in google, and Gumuchdjian's site wasn't even listed.
F: A lot of them open in popup windows, which is very annoying.
and a special mention to OMA for resizing your browser every time you go to their website.
Sure, Flash based sites look nice (I was gonna say flash, but I decided not to. Whoops, too late), but aren't architects supposed to be able to design buildings which are functional, as well as beautiful. I wouldn't consider any of those sites to be very well designed, from a functional point of view.
I was going to finish this post, by giving an example of an architect's page, which was well designed, and was an example of what every architect's website should be, but, I swear to god, I couldn't find one. In fact, the only non flash based one I found was Michael Graves' Website., Which is not even that great, to be honest.
Sorry if this sounds like a big rant, It's just something that annoys me.
Monday, 27 November 2006
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1 comment:
Its meant to be flashy and distracting, so you don't concentrate on how random their achitecture is
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