The best designed websites on the web.....here it is

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
5,464
Location
London Town
Even though I personally consider 2Advanced's showcase sites to be pretty dire as far as functional websites go, they do have a good sense of that particular industrial/tech style. Not my bag, but good work all the same.

Despite the negative responses they get, they must be doing something right. Of all the websites out there, this is the one site that I (and I'm sure many others) have seen consistently linked to for the apparent 'wow factor' over the past 4-5 (?) years. You rarely, if ever, see beautiful, cleanly coded, accessible and cutting-edge sites linked to with the same sort of comment outside of industry and hobbyist circles. The very real fact is very few people care if the site validates, is accessible in a screenreader, is marked up semantically or displays any other of the best practices good web-designers strive for.

If it manages to makes a lasting impression, regardless of implementation, then it's a success. And if the fundamental concept of the web is linking, and being linked to, then perhaps 2Advanced is one of the best designed sites on the web. It's probably one of, if not the best known Flash showcase sites around, and they've gained significant exposure from it.

However, take a look at the most popular and successful sites on the web, and tell me if they're examples of good design - myspace, sina, google, ebay...

Perhaps then, the genuinely best-designed sites out there are those that aren't.
 
Associate
Joined
7 Nov 2003
Posts
1,057
The most functional and well designed sites that ive used to date are news.bbc.co.uk and the newzbin website, which i wont link too for obvious reasons.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2004
Posts
998
Location
London
Augmented said:
However, take a look at the most popular and successful sites on the web, and tell me if they're examples of good design - myspace, sina, google, ebay...

Perhaps then, the genuinely best-designed sites out there are those that aren't.

But none of the examples you listed are graphic design companies so you cannot compare them. Microsoft is more profitable than Tesco, does this mean that Tesco is not successful? 2Advanced has done stuff for Nintendo, Ford and Motorola so I would say that they are very successful

Ad to answer your question, they are good for their purpose. If I wanted a flash demonstration for a new swanky product, I would not go to a website that looks like google. If I wanted to take part in an online auction, I would not go to a site that loads like 2Advanced
 
Permabanned
OP
Joined
12 Apr 2006
Posts
221
If everyone just stuck to HTML like some people seem to think, would the internet ever evolve and move forward? Im glad there are people trying different things and pushing the boundries. That 2advanced site runs quick on my pc and is excellently laid out, maybe other people need to update their pcs. The people who say "ohh it needs flash so im not going to bother" are also living in the past so how do you expect anything to ever move forward.

Design can mean two things also. Easy to navigate and cleanly accessible or a great piece of art. I was aiming for the latter.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom