[Sigia-l] Useful Splash Screens

[Tanya Rabourn]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2002, Gent, Andrew wrote:
> >>As I asked before, just what *is* a splash screen?
>
> Ziya, I am sure you have your own concept of what it is, but just in
> case that was more than a rhetorical question...
>
> The term "splash screen" is borrowed from software development, where
> the splash screen is the thing that pops up when the application starts,
> listing the application name, version number, etc. (I suspect they, in
> turn, borrowed the word "slash" from advertising where it is a bright,
> temporal, attention-getting device.)

I think what's important here isn't what the term "splash screen"
*really* means, but what the client means when he says "I want a
splash screen."  Don't think I would assume that he's familiar
with the term from sw development so much as from hearing it from
friends when describing other sites.

I'm imagining a senario like this:

client:  I want a splash screen (thought bubble:  presenting them
with an image of happy patients will be more reassuring than a lot
of cold hard facts up front)

Jodi: But splash screens are evil (thought bubble: you want some
big useless flash animation of your logo that everyone will be
desperate to click through to get to the actual information.)

Sometimes when clients say I want all that text to be really big
and red, they actually mean I need that bit to be featured
prominently and it be the first thing your eye is drawn to.

It's designer/IA as therapist:

client: I want a splash screen
designer: What I hear you saying is that you want the initial
page to not be text heavy and have a prominent image that sets a
tone for the site.

-Tanya
___________________________________
Tanya Rabourn <rabourn at columbia.edu>
[User Services Consultant]
AcIS R & D <www.columbia.edu/acis/rad>
tel: 212.854.0295