At Digerati Studio Limited we value very highly User Centred Design. The design of a website, web application, mobile phone etc. should be centred around the user so that they can access what they want, and should they be new, it should be very clear to understand and use.
With this in mind, we ensure that we adopt the best technology to suit each individual project. However, not everybody has the same values as us. For example, www.msdewey.com is a new search engine made entirely in Flash. Flash is an excellent technology to incorporate specialist animation, video and audio. However, there are some things that get in the way when exploring a flash site.
In this example, the initial flaw is the loading time! When a user wants to search for something, they want instant information, they do not want to wait 30 seconds for the page to load before they submit their keywords for searching!
Secondly, once a search has been submitted, the user wants instant results in a layout that means they can instantly find what they are looking for, not watch a video sequence and then have a small window that only contains 3 results at any one time!
Finally, this site fails the WC3 outlines for accessibility, as non of the content in flash is accessible to screen readers!
Hopefully, this site is not pushing to be acknowledged as a serious search engine. But it is a great tool to help outline the errors in design that highlight why User Centred Design is so important!
Apprently this site is a Microsoft viral Ad compaign! Explains alot really……
http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/