This is a cracking site, and totally agree with the simplicity being it’s charm. The different positions the girls running the café are in are appropriate and make you want to scroll over each button to see what they’ll be doing next.

I didn’t like how you have to click the little ‘home’ button to get out of a specific section, perhaps a simple click away from the content would take you back to the home page, but that’s a minor gripe. Colours used are also a winner.

Great concept, well executed.

[Reply]

But why is it in Flash…? There is absolutely no reason why this site couldn’t have been built in simple HTML and CSS (with a bit of Javascript on the side). Benefits (SEO, usability, accessibility, etc) are too many to count!

[Reply]

Ryan Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

I can see where this ‘hating on Flash’ attitude is derived, but I don’t completely agree with it.

The SEO argument is legitimate since Flash obviously doesn’t allow spiders to read content. However, I feel as though this heavy emphasis on SEO is becoming detrimental to marketing as a discipline. Marketing is about making an impact and often an impact is achieved through small charms such as previously unseen transitions, animations and interactivity (all hallmarks of a Flash website). Yes you can mimic these features in javascript, but nothing that hasn’t been done on 1000′s of other websites.

So, in an age where Word of Mouth has become increasingly prevalent (often referred to as viral marketing) why are marketing agencies (not all) so absorbed with improving low quality search engine traffic instead of really making an impact with a truly unique (possibly flash) website experience that gets plenty of real traffic through word of mouth.

On a side note, their website is still 1st on Google if ‘Red Shed Cafe’ is searched. So what more could they want from SEO? could they really expect to reach no.1 with the keyword ‘cafe’? What’s an ‘SEO optimised websites’ promise to this business if they did go HTML instead of flash?

In any case, due to bucking the trend of SEO type sites, this website is now being spoken about in this forum.

[Reply]

Katherine Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 1:35 pm

As someone who has worked in the web, specialising both in accessibility and usability, your attitude is one that I hear quite often.

From an accessibility point of view, Flash is almost always a big ‘fail’. Flash can be coded to be more accessible, but this is hardly ever done. In 99% of cases, you are excluding people with many different types of disabilities from reading this information.

Have you tried looking at this site in an iPhone? iPhone does not run Flash, and even if it did, a full Flash site could potentially be very difficult to navigate. A growing number of web users are using these smartphones; do you think this cafe wants their site to be inaccessible to iPhone users?

You counter that the Red Shed Cafe comes first in Google search results. That’s great if you know the exact name of the cafe. What if you just searched for ‘cafe yarra valley’ – a fairly targeted search phrase? I had the patience to look through 3 pages of search results, and the Red Shed Cafe didn’t come up at all.

Yes, the Red Shed Cafe will now get increased SEO from a page where we are debating about the value of its website. I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing.

And from a pure usability perspective, like John (who commented below me), I found the ‘Skip intro’ and ‘loading’ sequence to be tedious and slow, and only persisted because I wanted to see what you were talking about. In my experience with user testing, people are not prepared to wait a long time for Flash to load. On my super high speed connection, it still took between 5 and 10 seconds. How long do you think it takes for people on slower connections in rural areas (e.g. the Yarra Valley – where the cafe is located).

From the Red Shed Cafe’s point of view, unless this is driven by a content management system, the maintenance of a Flash site is extremely complicated. They will need to call back the Flash developer to make any changes to the website. They want to change their opening hours or alter the menu? That’s a minimum of 1 hour’s work (maybe $100 per hour) to change a few characters. Had they used a simple content management system and an HTML-based site, they could do it themselves – for free – in 2 minutes.

I don’t ‘hate on Flash’ – Flash has a time and a place, but in this instance, I find that it is poorly used.

Some food for thought.

[Reply]

Sven Miller Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

Just because they don’t appear in the search results for ‘cafe yara valley’ doesn’t mean that they have less vistors to their site than the other nearby cafés. I know all you SEO experts will probably call me an idiot for stating this, but what if:
All the cafés in Yara Valley spent the same amount of money from equally competent and expensive SEO experts. What site would have the most amount of visitors? The one with interesting content or the other ones looking almost the same as every other site?

“the maintenance of a Flash site is extremely complicated”, unfortunately this is not true any more, there are many great solutions out there for Flash Content Management, I know because I work at Yooba, the best solution available for Flash CMS.

Ryan Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

I also searched ‘cafe yarra valley’ and more than half of the 1st page results (i understand that few people go beyond page 1) are all directories. A third party source which can link directly to your website and is likely to be more trusted than the organisation’s own web content.

I posted about this somewhere below. I definitely agree with a lot of what your saying in certain contexts, but I think path dependencies based upon our vocations is the main player in our comments. bounded rationality.

I agree with Katherine, even on a high speed connection it takes too long to load. I’m over the whole “skip the intro” thing as well. It is aesthetically pleasing but the navigation can be improved, the “Home” link is inefficient, I want to go more directly to the other main pages.

[Reply]

It could all be done without flash, and done just as well (if not better), and on brand and even in a way that was more engaging and useful.. And yes it could be more usable and more accessible, and printable and better on a mobile device, seo … etc etc…

But hey these guys are a small business and who knows maybe they used the best resources that had at hand… So if this was the simplest easiest way for them to get on the web, then its a win for them.

At the end of the day, if the majority of people find it and use it.. And the owners are happy.. Its a win… we are all so judgmental these days… Im all for web standards, but when its the overriding benchmark for a great website… Just chill and be tolerant.. Not everyone has access to web professionals nor the budget to make it happen

JB

[Reply]

Ok, just to be clear, for an SMB outside the IT game, yes they have done very well. My comments were really directed more at the author’s assertion that “Here’s a retail website that actually gets it right”…I think that’s an overstatement.

[Reply]

It took about 2 min for me to load and I too wouldn’t have waited if it wasn’t for this article.

I’m not a fan of flash for retail commerce sites (although http://www.crumplerbags.com nearly changed my mind), but for this type of purely marketing site it works pretty well. (Presuming I would have hung around to see it, which I wouldn’t have).

[Reply]

Sorry Paul but I think your confusing ‘creative’ with ‘effective’. This site failed me immediately, twice! First it had a splash page which is a complete waste of the visitors time. Next it took up all its front page real estate with ‘the game’ expecting visitors to click around to find what they are after. Dont the designers realise that this has a ‘one visit’ novelty. Repeat visitors would tire of its non user friendliness v quickly. This might win creative awards but let the client down. Sorry.

[Reply]

You could argue the same about http://producten.hema.nl/, one of the most popular retail websites in recent times (wait a few seconds after it loads). Review here: http://anthillonline.com/hema-more-than-greets-the-eye/

It shows that the viral impact of doing something different and interesting with the concept of ‘we’ve got stuff, you should buy it’ often delivers a greater audience than fiddling with technical nuance or SEO. That can’t be bad for branding and, by extension, sales.

[Reply]

John Power Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 11:15 am

Paul, I checked this hema link out and couldn’t disagree more.
It’s annoying, self indulgent, time wasting and gives me no confidence as a buyer.
There’s a reason Amazon doesn’t do this kind of stuff and just focuses on what really matters. I’ve spent thousands of dollars over a few years with Amazon and even though I find their site artistically dead, they deliver what matters, competitive range and pricing, security and outstanding customer service. Ironically on the rare occasion that something goes wrong, you’ll learn just how good they really are.
I keep going back and stopped price matching a long time ago.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree I guess.

[Reply]

Paul Ryan Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

Not sure that we’re in complete disagreement, John. I love Amazon, too, just like I love Google search. The question is: when trying to compete with these and other established players, how do you break through the ice to demonstrate that you provide second-to-none customer service and other points of difference? You might think the HEMA example is annoying, but others don’t and almost no one would even know about the site if it was just another unimaginative digital shopfront window. Easier to just head straight to Amazon.

By the way, I noticed you’ve commented on Leela’s post http://anthillonline.com/%E2%80%9Cmuuuuuuum-woolies-is-stealing-my-market-share%E2%80%9D/, where a parallel conversation is taking place regarding competing with established players.

[Reply]

John Power Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

Paul, that’s the thing…it is Darwinian, so don’t attempt to compete with “these and other (big/strong/rich) established players”…be nimble, do what they can’t do, develop your own USP, deliver value to your target niche and run like hell in a crazy ivan reversing zig zig path to dodge the meteors!

Perhaps there are two paradigms being toted here. Purely informational/SEO and emotive/experiential. Websites will always fall somewhere between these two extremes.

This website falls further towards emotive/experiential (its not a fantastic example… but this is http://archive.hi-res.net/saw/). Websites like these primary aim to create a unique user experience which works to create a solid brand identity. The style is more often used in the creative industry i.e. films, bands, marketing agencies etc.

I personally don’t think it is particularly a bad move for a cafe to fall closer to emotive/experiential content then informational/SEO, but admittedly there are some serious shortcomings in SEO that they could have easily implemented.

I’m a little skeptical about the ‘above all’ status that SEO enjoys given that there is a movement towards users sourcing information from 3rd parties (twitter, review blogs, directories such as total travel). So I think there is real merit in using an organisation’s own webspace to communicate a ‘brand experience’ which is found through 3rd party sources rather than the highly competitive search engine market.

[Reply]

I fail to see how the site is clever and simple. The most arrogant aspect of the site is where they expect everyone to click ‘home’ from every sub link to access another page. This lack of usability design was something I thought was left back in the late 1990′s.

There’s also no sales pitch, no clue as to what I’m supposed to click too, which is lost opportunity if this is a retail site. Even something as simple as a ‘book now’ button would be a good start.

From a purely visual aspect I like the layout, however the whole thing is better suited to print, not the web.

In terms of SEO, unless their focus is mail-order they really only need to attract a local audience (driving distance) so I couldn’t have thought that was an issue.

From looking at this site, if I lived locally I’d certainly check it out, however I’m more likely to have heard about it through word of mouth etc. Which begs the question, why spend the budget on a site like this which I’m sure wouldn’t have been cheap?

[Reply]

…a few more things noticed

There are no hyperlinks within the content that link to simple things like the contact page. The Functions page says ‘Please email or call the Red Shed Cafe with any inquiries’. There’s no phone number listed here or any link to an email address.

If you’re trying to increase sales, make it very easy to make contact.

The text on all the sub pages are center justified which isn’t the easiest to read. The more I look at the site, the more I think the design was initially intended for print.

This may all be picky, however I don’t think this site deserves the title ‘actually get’s it right’. I hope that people read everyone’s comments to learn what to avoid with their own website.

[Reply]

Ryan Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Sure it may be easier for us to read left justified text, just as it is easier for us to listen to a pop song in g major instead of some bizzare eastern scale. It’s conditioning and it’s important, but if you keep following what is ‘conditionally’ correct all the way, all websites ever created would be identical, completely abolishing the concept of a unique brand. RedShedCafe.com.au is more about creating a unique (possibly quircky) identity then providing an information overload, allowing creative freedom in how they present their content.

[Reply]

Hamish Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 3:52 pm

I agree, however sales of pop music in Australia at least, I think far exceed sales of esoteric eastern music. In this sense there is a distinction between art and business.

I’m sure if we asked people like Robbie Williams if they set out to push musical barriers or sell records, I’m sure he’d take the chauffeur driven stretch hummer every time.

If you want to sell something and profit, you have to provide what the market wants. Certainly if you have the time, patience and spare cash, you can have the luxury of conditioning people.

I think we need to look at this site objectively from what we think the brief was. As it’s a business we’ll assume they want to make sales. I must stress that I’m assuming this.

You can be creative within parameters. What you’re alluding too is that in order to be interesting and successful on the web, you have to put up barriers and force people to relearn and rethink.

I would hope my clients would be appalled if I said to them that we’re going to create a site for them that will force their market to rethink how they use the web. I would expect nothing less than to be thrown out of the boardroom window.

Again, I’m critiquing this site from a commercial perspective. Trends change and art pushes the boundaries of what we deem normal. But let’s leave this to artists.

If we want to sell and profit, which I’m sure the readers of this magazine want to do, then we need to be look at websites from our customers perspective.

What do they really want?

We can’t until we ask, and even then we need to review data and make improvements.

When high traffic websites such as news sites, ebay, Amazon and the like start wanting us to experience new navigational techniques and information layout, then yes, it’s time for smaller operations to take those trends into account.

For a small business based in Victoria, to think they can start changing the way we browse, they may not get the results they hoped for.

[Reply]

What I like about this site is that it obviously wasn’t produced by a large multimedia marketing services firm. It probably isn’t embedded with layers of SEO. And it probably cost very little to produce.

It’s for a winery/cafe.

It includes a map (as mentioned, almost always forgotten by SMEs). It includes a mailing list (the site is suddenly more than a brochure… it involves data collection). And it’s infectious, sticky and, in terms of punching beyond its weight, it’s a rockin’ little gem.

Can anyone introduce me (us all) to a website for a small winery or cafe that ‘bests’ the RedShedCafe for these reasons – that didn’t cost a squillion to produce?

[Reply]

Hamish Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

I think we all need to take a step back here. We’re assuming far too much.

We have no idea what this particular site cost, nor do we know what it’s objectives are.

It would be great to get some comment from the cafe owners on what they set out to achieve, and what the result has been to date.

In terms of comparing it to other websites in that industry, unless we know what those websites were designed to achieve, and what the subsequent results have been, reviewing them at face value will provide little insight into what makes a website work.

[Reply]

It’s a nice site, visually engaging, until you scratch the surface. The content isn’t too engaging, and the functionality is a bit so-so.

I’m sure it’s right on brand though, it’s just shame there wasn’t more thought put into the user, how/where they’d be accessing from and for what (or at least, if that thought was there, that it remained throughout the design process).

[Reply]

Just a thought. As more and more people use iPhones, Android and the like to find things… this site becomes completely useless. Over the next few years I would be completely revamping the site to cater for this. Also from my 5Mbit connection it took close to 15 seconds and I just closed the window. Peoples attention spans are short as it is. Maybe for a film festival site or multimedia project I would hang around and put up with the flash.

[Reply]

This debate is worthwhile so long as it doesn’t get miscontrued or degenerates into beating up the ladies at the Cafe. Like I said, I don’t like the site but do give them points for actually having one presummably made to a budget and designed by an external “expert” web dude or a IT savvy friend etc. I for one make crap coffee and you all want to hope I never go into the catering business.

BUT, It’s not ‘…a retail website that actually gets it right”

I read something recently that is worth thing about…& I quote.

Online marketing means more than having a pretty website.

“There is a ’science to design’ that most web developers simply don’t want to know about.”

[Reply]

I agree with Hamish, apart from having a scottish name, I think he’s the only one that makes sense.

[Reply]

Just to put some numbers to the discussion about SEO above.

1) 60% of the traffic to most websites comes from search engines – the people who already know your name whilst important aint going to grow your business as much as the people who don’t…

2) a half second improvement in page load time can lead to a 20% traffic improvement – 5 secs is way out of the ballpark on the time most users will wait (2-3 secs)

I see this sort of stuff all the time with client sites. It’s the “build it and they will come” philosophy of web design. It was a great philosophy – when the web was 2 years old. There are many small business people out there as people said above paying for something to be developed that looks great (and this does) but is never going to do what they want it to do (bring in clients).

[Reply]

In the spirit of constructive feedback…there’s not a single image (that I found) of a single customer experiencing or enjoying / benefitting from what they are offering…an odd exclusion for what I imagine is the intent of making it look inviting etc to entice new clientele.

[Reply]

Hamish Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

Yes, I think it’s a problem that many small business owners cause for themselves by taking inspiration from larger, successful organisations. The marketing requirements for small and new businesses are significantly different to organisations that already have a track record firmly in place.

You need to communicate and deliver unique value at every available opportunity. If you’re an unknown quantity trying to build exclusivity, you’ll literally become an industry ‘best kept secret’.

[Reply]

Mark Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

Spot on. And the readability of the menu is terrible. Bad usability.

[Reply]

Perhaps we could create a checklist?

In a recent post, we talked about creating a section called ‘RateMyInnovation’.

Why not, ‘RateMyWebsite’?

But what would be the criteria?

[Reply]

John Power Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 2:37 pm

OK, I’ll be the “crash test dummy”…

Go here: http://www.biztoolsanalytics.com.au/

Now, I’m open to all feedback, but if you think something is lacking, explain why or suggest how to improve it, be specific if possible.

Some context here, the site(s) are B2B and only gone live about 2-3 weeks ago and there are some obvious things on the agenda to be completed.

…suddenly feeling like the Deer in that old Larson calendar.

[Reply]

It looks good. There are a number of “simple” features that probably suit the type of business. And “cafe yarra valley” is fairly loosely targeted – considering the size of the Yarra Valley – to not appear in the 1st 3 pages, is kissing goodbye to a lot of potential business/visitors/patrons…

I’m not sure about you, but when I’m heading somewhere or buying something, I will research on Google if its not on the 1st page, i dont care or I’m to lazy to go to the next pages.. I wonder how many others feel or do the same… Do you?

Did you know that in the UK that online/digital spend outweighed media spend for the first time in history. Following technology trends in Australia, I would think and assume that this trend will hit the Australian shores in the next 6-12 months. Have they got this right? I think not… Flash is detrimental, SEO is imperative, strategic navigational design to engage users – maybe…

But lets ask the owner’s of the website. Are they happy with their website? Is it doing the job/meeting the objectives of the business and their budget? Lets hope so.. The next step from the agency or developer’s perspective is support and suggest recommendations to the owner’s to ensure that they are in a position to make an educated decision – to not be forgotten.

Red Cafe who? Look it up on Google?

[Reply]

I agree with the majority. Visually, the site is quite good, but the use of flash has certainly let it down. Full flash sites do have a place. For example I’ve a friend that builds beautiful flash wedding and photography websites. But no one I know uses it for retail.

SEO and mobile compatibility is critical in retail, actually MORE important than the asthetics. A good CMS based site provides this instantly, especially if based around wordpress or other blog platform which today allows clients to update site content (as well as quickly view) on their iPhone or Nokia. For an SEO rating of the redshedcafe site, go to
http://websitegrader.com/site/www.redshedcafe.com.au/

[Reply]

I commented on this article on the Anthill Linked In group so I won’t babble on about the flash too much. As an advocate of online retailing in Australia, yes, the flash is an issue, I am the first to pull it apart from that perspective, lets look at it from another perspective.

A larger proportion of computers DO have flash installed and most visitors will arrive at the site and HAVE a great experience. For those users this is a wonderful site, I for example just want to hop in my car on the weekend and visit this place.

I always advise people and clients on best practice because we want sites to look great and work well for as many visitors as possible, and be indexed properly in search engines yet this is a great effort on a small budget. Give it the credit it deserves instead of just ripping it apart.

[Reply]

Splash screens, intros, and using a design metaphor have all been tried and failed over the years.
If this cafe did business over the web rather than just using it for promotion it would be in trouble.
One point that hasn’t been mentioned is how much more this website costs than a traditional website.
What happens when the menu changes? Its an image in flash, so the designer has to make the change. A lucrative deal for the designer, but not the cafe.
I know of businesses that have almost closed down because they paid too much for a website like this, and it failed to deliver the online sales they needed.
A web user decides what to do on a web page within 3 seconds. At 3 seconds I was looking at a black screen with 39% in the middle, and I have a high speed cable broadband connection.

[Reply]

Hamish Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 11:45 am

Agree, however in many cases like this if the business cannot edit content, small tasks such as updating a menu etc will keep getting put on the back burner.

[Reply]

From a development perspective there is no animation there that could not be done with javascript.

[Reply]

A Flash site is easy to index, it just need to load from a html page. And this site is in HTML (index.htm) which can easily be found by google. (ok they have not optimised the site, but that have nothing to do with Flash. Correct the flash flies (SWF) can not be indexed, but the site can. Regarding speed of the site, when Flash is added to a site, all the files loads at the same time, therefore the wait (the size does matter).
Summery; A Flash site can be found by Google just as easy as any another site.
The myth lives on!

http://www.gizmovideo.com.au
http://www.stuntman.com.au

[Reply]