Road Runner Flash Portal

It's a little funny that the download page offers...Flash! It would be kind of hard to get to that page without having Flash already, no?

It seems to be *just like* Central, even down to the look of the "pods" (they are called pods), and the annoying modal dialog boxes: uncheck the sound fx button and you get a confirmation dialog: "Sound FX disabled!"

It's pretty impressive though, even for the odd bug that kept autoscrolling me to the bottom of every page.

It reminds me of Roger Black's design for @Home Network back in 1997.

Regarding the speed of loading, if it's actually a portal for RR customers, then the target audience is all broadband.

The search engine is truly poor, but maybe that's due to it's beta status.

I have to say that is pretty impressive.

Slow, hard-to-use, inaccessible, not every audience appropriate (due to the content of the site, not the fact that they're targeting broad band) and way over-designed -- but impressive none the less.

That is a pretty slick looking site - I suppose as long as they realize what problems they're introducing for their users, it's their decision. As a web designer myself, I wouldn't implement an entirely flash-based site until there were some way of overcoming the limitations (no search engine indexing or bookmarking being the main ones), but hey, if some company wants to do it and can justify it to themselves, more power to them. :)

I would assume that whatever group (company or in-house) is developing this for them would know and educate them about the problems inherent with the system.

Honestly, I think this is probably perfect for their audience. I would assume this site is meant to be what loads by default in the browser for their new broadband subscribers... it is in itself a showcase for why a person would choose broadband, and offers lots of things to do with that fat pipe (such as videos, sound fx, voices, transitions, etc.) This site doesn't need to be searched or bookmarked, because it's so shallow and well-organized, and the content is so light/generic/universal that there is no need for it. (Honestly, the only thing they could add that would make sense would be to "email this story", but obviously since there is nothing to reference, you can't do that.)

I am mostly just amazed by the level of detail, and the amount of design put into massaging all the content from the assuredly numerous sources (see: weather). I am also amazed that I had never seen this site before, was expecting to be frustrated, but was totally able to move around without any hitches.

wow, cracked it open with Flare, that's a lot of code.

I know it looks cool, but what's the point of a site that you can't mark your place or anything else of use? You have to go through the steps every time.

Click Enter... change your settings... find the page you want. (Although, if I could sign in it probably keeps my settings.)

If I want to check my weather, I want to get that right away. I don't really want to "go through the motions" but I just want a bookmark.

Again, it looks real pretty, but it should really be paired up with better functionality, then it'd be a truly awesome site.

if i were them, i'd make a cool bookmarking engine inside flash that would be accessible when they're logged in. if it's meant for users, i think that'd be just as elegant, if not more so, as any standard browser bookmarks.

I agree with ben.

I've been using RR broadband service in States 2 years ago, at least 5 times faster than my current limited ADSL. I think to broadband users, what they are expecting from RR's portal site is more entertaining experience instead of saving a few seconds download time. BTW, once the interface elements cached, the homepage will be loaded as fast as other HTML portal, according to my experimenting today.

As a portal to its subscribers (remember, it is they who are the audience not someone like myself in Illinois) this is much better than what I receive with my Comcast broadband service at home. Once you choose your location you never have to do it again (just click "enter") And since it just regurgitates information from various sources it doesn't need to index information (note, that what parts of their Help section do work appear to be HTML so you can bookmark those pages). Whether or not you like the design is another story - although, I think it fits well with their licensing of the WB Road Runner cartoon character. In general it at leasts begs the question "Why doesn't my provider offer me something like this instead of the lame, thrown together site they currently have?"

As far as broadband vendor portals go, I think it looks the best and serves its purpose the best. I was a customer of Comcast in Philadelphia, a longtime MSN customer before that, and am now with Everest in KC. All had their own portals offering pretty much the same content. Comcast's was/is the absolute worst since it was so bogged down with code that even their "broadband" choaked loading it. Everest is too generic, MSN's was probably the best.

For a portal, it works well. A few pieces of headline news, weather, etc, all within a click or two. No one is going to read their news there; they'll go a bigger portal like CNN or MSN.

I think they could have not used the flash, however, since they've negated any kind of accessibility. If someone in my family was blind, they'd be lost.

Visually impressive. As a 56k user, I can assure you that the load times are completely ass. Even beyond my amazing patience. Also a little bewildered and amused at the two identical 'enter roadrunner' buttons at the beginning of the site. I haven't checked to see if they go to the same place yet, but it's somewhat perplexing.

I hate Flash. I was on dialup for several years, but my hate dates before that: as a design student, my least favorite assignment was having to do a 2-minute Flash movie. (I have no apptitude for things with timelines. None.) Now, I regularly use a computer that can't (won't?) run the plug-in. (I've reinstalled it at least 5 times with no sucess) which doesn't bother me TOO much, as web surfing isn't my primary focus here, but... It makes things harder, with more sites going to Flash for important things like navigation (glares at comcast.net) and other must-haves.

I suppose I'll have to deal with this all-Flash future possibility on sites that are geared towards the general public, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully by then I'll have a better computer.

Didn't load particualrly quickly on my cable modem. And, honestly -- name ONE thing on this site that could not have been done using standards based accessible technologies? It's a nice piece of infomation and visual design, but the implementaion???

it looks like websidestory developed it, right? (http://websidestory.com/)

Looks nice, but the text is too small and low-contrast for me on a hi-res monitor, and there is no way to resize it. When something as basic as the text is hard to read, I just can't get past that to evaluate anything else or spend any time on the site.

There are font size and contrast options at the story level, which are quite handy, and somewhat necessary. I'm not quite sure why they even bother using the "normal" contrast, when the "high" contrast is the real norm. And why couldn't they find a place for these two tools on the upper-level pages (or "settings page")is suprising...

Interesting that you bring up the problem of not being able to resize the text. I know a lot of users feel that if they have a high-resolution video card, then they should crank it up all the way. This isn't always a good idea, especially if you are developing for a broad audience. Go to a computer store and look around at the text size in the operating systems and then at the resolution. The Apple stores are a good place to start. 12-14 point text looks pretty big/clunky on most of those monitors.

It's a gorgeous interface, fast and apparently driven with dynamic content: sure, it's overdesigned, but everything just aligns so perfectly to the grid, dammit. It's true - it would be nice to see if they've managed to incorporate accessibility functions: there's a "voice" option - does it have a built-in screen reader?
The one thing I don't get, aesthetically, is the use of silver tones for the main content area, and brown and gold for the navigation: it looks like Windows XP's Silver theme trapped inside the UPS website. If they're going to use page background colors to denote themes, silver's a much better neutral to use than off-whites.

Are they using frames?? If you pop up an enlarged image in a news story, you get a draggable windoid, but only within the silver content area - kinda useless to have something you can only drag by a centimeter or two. It would be better to just pop open an image frame inline with the layout, at the top of the story.

I tried it on Safari and to my surprise-- the back button actually works. If you click on one of the buttons on the side nav and then click the back button, you get back to the homepage (without a page reload). Nice.

The attention to detail overall is quite impressive. It loaded pretty much as fast as most portal homepages. It feels zippy on my newish Mac. And as others have mentioned, it has the right feature set for the target audience-- a multi-media rich portal for high speed cable customers.

Well, wasted money, time, bandwith, neurons...

Bottom Line: This inspires me to change from Comcast to Road Runner. I mean if they put this much effort into their portal it surely indicates they are putting equal effort into their actual service and support. This site is now my homepage and the more you customize the more you get hooked. Best website on the internet. 10/10.

I agree with Mark. Regarding the bookmark issue, the site is just a release candidate maybe they will have that later on, but i dont really see the need for it as the content seems to be updated every few minutes and it is a news kind of site after all. What they have done is truely groundbreaking and its difficult to find anything negative with this site, remarkable considering the risks that went into doing this in 100% flash. For what you get, customization, sounds, video, flash is the only way. I am on a 56k and once loaded its extreamly fast compared to any other flash site and mind you any html site for that matter. Now I am going to look into Road Runner as an alternative to my dialup.
The site was made by FI (amazing company).

WOW!
The weather area or pod is really cool. The menu system with the previews is genius and the whole thing is just a master piece. Sign me up!
Would like to see more videos though.

Looks nice, but I think the text (we *are* supposed to read the text, right) looks like hell. Why does all the eye candy look so good, and the text looks so bad?

I also agree that there's nothing here that couldn't be done using standards-compliant markup. I don't think all-Flash sites are web sites at all, and I'd hate to see a general move inthis direction.

Text is very ledgeable, very, especially with the size options which are for older people in my opinion as the standard one is more than suitable. There is now way this site could of been done to this extent in anything but flash. Those of you whom still are the old html nerds, wake up, get over it. Here is a site that finally marks the death of html. And thank god, becasue it will put most of you wannabe developers whom critisize anything you cant do (like Road Runner), out of a job.

That site takes an absolute age to load on dial-up. As others have said, the site has to be only targeted at Broadband users.

Joe Black says "Here is a site that finally marks the death of html."

Ummm....wanna place a wager on that one?

Let's get real folks. Flash is a great tool. This is an impressive site. But, and this is a HUGE but, Flash will never, ever, kill HTML.

Joe Black also says "There is now way this site could of been done to this extent in anything but flash."

Possibly true, but I'd wager 90% could be done with good old HTML and done is a way that is faster, cheaper, more accessible, easier to read, future proofed, etc. etc.

The bottom line here is that this is an informational portal. I agree that they might have something there with the delivery method to a broadband audience -- if it's just a marketing tool to show off broadband -- as an informational site it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I'm quite sure that the majority of their users would (will?) bypass this portal in favor of something tried and true and easy to use.

But then again, if it's intention is to be a marketing tool that isn't actually used -- they've done a great job.

Oh and to the "real" Web developers out there -- what is so wrong with having a site that makes good use of both Flash and html.

Am I the only one who sees that you can get the best of both worlds? This site could be just as cool, just as slick...and accessible, searchable, usable and readable.

Maybe that is where we'll see some real progress in Web development.

Bah to those who say otherwise - this is one of the best marketing tools I have seen in a long time. What would you offer if you were the standards compliant CSS/XHTML developer sitting in on the meeting where Mr. CEO asked, "How can we get more people to sign up for broadband cable-modem service?"

"I've got a sweeeeet style sheet sir!"

99% of the people playing around on the internet could care less if the site validates 100% for CSS and XHTML transitional. They WANT and demand the eye-candy. Fail to deliver that candy and they will go elsewhere. They have made it perfectly clear what they are selling (broadband vs. 56k) and who it is for (Joe Consumer in Upstate NY). Comcast/AT&T/SBC etc... should all be ashamed at their failure to deliver anything worth its weight in salt - let alone reliable service.

"They WANT and demand the eye-candy."

Oh yeah. Prove it.

Everything I've ever seen or read says otherwise.

Hmm the initial impression is DANG that is awesome, and by far the best example of dynaimc web content I've seen in a long time

My questions though are is this not a complete and utter waste of time? I don't see the advantages of useing FLASH to build this over normal HTML - other than eye candy. There is nothing here that really says the extra 500 hours of developmetn were worth it.

What's going to happen when the next generation of IE comes out and it no longer supports Flash due to the EOLAS case? Suddenly all Road Runner visitors are presented with a page that says "This page has multimedia content, would you like to reload it?" - most are going to FREAK out and run.

Having said that ... there is a heap of work gone into this, and I think ported to a Rich Internet DESKTOP applicaiton for RR customers this would rock - then it darn well should/could be built with Central

Huge Respect to teh developers

Could not be done in html.
Outstanding marketing tool and I use this, i actually use it. Becasue? Surf the thing and find out.

By the way, note they've chosen 800x600, making it a good argument against 1024x768 requests by clients that assume their target audience has the latest and greatest technology, I mean, they didn't assume "got broadband, so must be @ 1024"

I'd be more impressed if they hadn't just slapped bitmap images in a flash presentation. A truly vector interface would have been drop-dead amazing. There is no reason at all this couldn't have been done in a Flash/HTML hybrid (assuming that the "eye candy" of the slow rollover navigation and spinning RoadRunner were not possible otherwise, or even necessary).

It's a pretty interface, but I'm missing why this couldn't be done with HTML and heavy use of graphics. Using XHTML/CSS doesn't mean you can't use graphics!

It's horrible.

Text is not anti-aliased for me in Safari/Panther and it is hard to read.

Since they basically invented new interface conventions (how buttons work, etc...) I find myself confused at how many times I have to click -- In one place you click to select item -- click OK to go to item, yet in others you hover and click on item to go to item.

Could this be the future? MM has done IMO the natural transitions for Flash and it is very cool and you can build applications like this... but why? I suppose with all the appropriate news feeds it hums along so maybe maintenance isn't all that bad.

In the end it reminds me of the Director work I did in the early-mid 90s... somehow like dead media already.

Why does it need to be a hybird when the whole thing is simply outstanding in flash. Very positive site for the web and Road Runner. I dont seem to know of any other site in history that would have this much impact on an audience just becasue of how amazing it is.

This is a funny thread. The Flash junkies are going WOW. The Standards junkies are going... uh why not just do it in html. I myself am a flash junkie so i have to say that they did and excellent job and the site meets its target audience perfectly. Hopefully we will see them implement a feature that will allow bookmarking in the final release because that IS necessary for a site like this.

In the end we can argue Flash vs. HTML, but the success of the site will come down the the opinions of their broadband customers. I think they will enjoy it and it will strengthen the brand. I am a road runner subscriber and i already have it set as my home page. I think we will see more sites like this in the near future when they are appropriate. Now its just a matter of finding developers with the skills to build them... Rise

I love this site. Perfect for the audience. I'm more of a standards-junkie but don't mind breaking the rules sometimes. 800px width is just fine. All the little boxes and menu have a comfortable amount of whitespace in this width. If they would've used vector images instead of raster(jpg) this site could have been a masterpiece but, sadly, many of the mouseover effects could have been done with links in a list and simply moving the link background on hover with css (see many A List Apart articles.) The mouseover image borders would be difficult in HTML, they are awesome though. Maybe make the image a background and use a transparent gif and on hover change to a semi-tranparent png? Just some thoughts. Enjoy.