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Cool idea has annoying Web site

Art House Boston sounds like an interesting idea - use for-sale houses as impromptu art galleries - but, geez, guys, just because you're frou-frou doesn't mean you have to put up a Web site with a hidden toolbar that only reveals itself when you accidentally figure out you have to mouse over random objets that have absolutely nothing at all to do with the menu items.

Quick! Find the "About Us" link on this page!

Blecch

This concludes this test of the Grumpy Web Guy system. Since this was an actual Web emergency, you were instructed to find a Web site with toolbars you can actually see.

Via LimeDuck, who likes the idea and didn't say anything about the Web site.

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Comments

Truly not an eternity, but far too long when it comes to the immediate intimacy of the web. I think this subject just came up on something I read:
Guided Navigation is a Provocative Idea

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Well, it's ART for god's sake. Don't expect it to work like slashdot. It's ART.

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The web is about more than just art. It's a medium for presentation. So shouldn't there be a more graceful merge of content and form? Perhaps not.

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www.instantrimshot.com

Not a word on it, yet it's instantly obvious what you have to do. A most satisfying online experience.

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So, a giraffe walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender brings the giraffe a beer. The giraffe asks how much, and the bartender says, "Eleven dollars."

After a minute or two, the bartender's curiosity gets the better of him. So, he starts a conversation with the giraffe.

Bartender: "You know, we don't get too many giraffes in here."

Giraffe: "And at eleven bucks a beer, you won't get too many more, either!"

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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Philistine! You just don't understand Jamaica Plain. No arugalu for you!

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Art in JP = Real Estate.

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it was quite instinctive for me. I went to the site, saw the body was a series of photo clips, pointed at one with the mouse, saw the color highlight it and a descriptive title came up, and though i didn't click knew instantly that it was a link.

there are about a billion websites set up like this, i don't get what the big huff is. Kudos to arthouse though, in just 15 seconds they forced you to challenge your own conceptions of cyber-spatial reality and forced to explore something with your eyes and mind to understand how it works differently than what you are [were] used to. Art!

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"They probably sit around on the floor with wine and cheese and mispronounce allegorical and didacticism."

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Hmm... Sorry Woody, but I know how to pronounce those correctly. My apologies if you were frightened by those 3+ syllable words. I should have maybe guessed that someone who is uncomfortable with a wordless symbol as an icon for navigation would recoil at the sight of a word that you wouldn't be confronted with in the Globe Sports Section

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I checked out the site and I'm not sure what the big deal is either. I had no problem figuring it out and found it quite pleasant.

If I had been trying to find a bus schedule or the section of the site that sells parts for a lawnmower, I'd have been pissed off by the lack of lists and scroll bars. As this is an art site, however, the minimalism was quite refreshing - like browsing in a gallery, not in a research library.

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No apology necessary Pierce. Some of us sports fans are also professional graphic designers that are not immune to using lowercase type or sarcasm to create art. I happen to also own a closet of black shirts.

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If you must know, we stand up and eat cheese and drink wine. We mingle. To date, I've never used the word didactic, but I think I'm going to start. I do feel much more intelligent, having just looked it up.

These comments about my website have made my day! I didn't think people would give it a thought let alone debate it. Thanks for giving it a whirl. Good or bad. If you want to actually peruse the art - our next show is June 14-15th in Lowell, MA at 155 Middlesex in some cool lofts. www.marstonlofts.com. I guess you'll probably be busy bashing someone else's site though, eh? Come say, "hi" if you can make it. I'm the 6'2", 230lb blonde guy in the black turtleneck. Kisses, Will

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Be sure to check out the Revolving Museum too, just down the street.

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As in: "srsly, like 'cyber-spatial' iz so 90's - hey, pass the brie". ;->

True, there are plenty of places with un-obvious navigation, which makes sense for something like that.

More to the point - although this in itself is really turning out to be tangential: why doesn't UH publicize trackbacks? If we want to be grumpy, and talk 90's, UH is a great BBS/forum that hasn't yet embraced the true 2.0-ness of interconnected individual blogs.

I know, I'm complaining without offering to help, but still: UH is a pretty cool congregation of Hub-bonians (I can't believe I haven't deleted that yet), so why not make it more of a true hub? I know; waiting for Drupal 6.0 to come out.

Sigh. I need coffee. Or sleep. Tossup at this point.

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I turned off trackbacks long ago when roughly 99.9% of incoming trackbacks were spam. I could try turning it back on now that the spam filters seem to work better.

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The fact that I had to figure it out to begin with means, to me, at any rate, that there's a problem. Yeah, I'm cranky like that.

Another example of mystery meat navigation.

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Sorry guys, didn't want you to think that I was giving the Arthouse website any endorsement one way or the other. I heard about the event the old fashioned way, from a person I was physically standing next to talk talking with. I added the link to make sure bloggy types could learn about the event, and I guess that worked. Now that I've seen the site, I have to say, yeah, that's a little weird. But hardly impassible.

Kudos for rolling out the Automatic Rimshot. My friend Julia (who has a brand new blog, http://www.growkookeat.com) also recommend the Automatic Flatterer: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~geoffo/humour/flattery...

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