Many, including myself, feel a lack of an ability to identify with Adam King. Yes, he looks like the late Tan Sri P. Ramlee (nice touch!), and has lots of friends who think well about him. Understandably too, the final stages of the campaign have yet to roll out.

However, we still do not know who Adam King is. Though he is a fictional character, more could have been done to develop his character to make him more real. An e-mail address that sends autoreplies and unsolicited SMS sent to my mobile phone isn't exactly very personal. Coupled with the fact that I couldn't call or receive any reply from the number it was sent from, it makes me a bit uncomfortable to receive a cryptic message. At the time, I was also using a phone which could only store 10 messages at most. Most of the people I've talked to say that despite the high level of visibility, they fail to see the message that the ads are trying to drive across.

Phrases like "When overwhelmed or under pressure, Asian individuals should be able to look to King for inspiration as he is a wise friend and coach that they can relate to" fail to leave a lasting impression on the general public, and only makes the more enlightened cringe. And what are we, as the public expected to do? Light fires, dance around them and offer sacrifices in praise of Adam King, our photojournalist saviour, ordained by the media and Irish beer?

Why not showcase photographic works by Adam King? Why not have an advice column or a live chat session, seeing that Adam King is a figure for "inspiration and guidance". We want to hear about when Mr. King had his first Guinness, his life, his first kiss. We want to hear stories on how he dealt with crisis. How will I identify with Adam King? Why would I care? In my opinion, there is a lot that could have been explored. If you're going to create a fictional character, where's the character development?

The following message below is a message I sent to the appropiate parties regarding the errors on their website. Have not received any reply.

From: Josh Lim
To : (Person at Saatchi & Saatchi), (Guinness Anchor Berhad), adamking@journalist.com

Thought you might like to know about the following errors I've found on "All About Adam King Online."

Running on : IE 6.0, Microsoft Windows XP, 800x600 - 1280 x 1024

Splash Page
(http://www.malaysia.net/adamking/)
- link to msn.com.my is invalid, due to the ommision of the http://

Main Page
(http://202.9.98.33/adamking/html/main/index.asp)
- Navigation graphic overlaps the All About Adam King Online title

A Message from Adam King (http://202.9.98.33/adamking/html/speech/index.html)
- No link for "On Taking Good Photograph". Shouldn't "Photograph" be plural?
- No link for "Adam's Favourite Drink"
- Text formatting : Font differs from rest of page
- Graphics : Signature on page is a single black block, should be a transparent GIF.
- Text formatting : No where am I closer to m(LINE BREAK) y roots than here in Asia

Biography
(http://202.9.98.33/adamking/html/biodata/index.html)
- mailto: link is invalid, e-mail address not defined.

On Taking Good Photograph (sic)
- Text formatting: Line break before last paragraph is one more than needed.

Ten Quick Tips for Great Shots (http://202.9.98.33/adamking/html/tips/index.html)
- No link for "On Taking Good Photograph"

The Inner Strength Quiz
(http://202.9.98.33/adamking/html/main/quiz/index.html)
- No link for "Registration for Event Updates"
- No link for "On Taking Good Photograph"

Adam's Favourite Drink
- Text formatting : "How" is not properly formatted. H is not in bold together with "ow it Began"
- Can't scroll to the end of the page (IE)
- Graphics : Link for "Registration for Event Updates" is missing

Registration for Event Updates
- Upon submission, the pop up window that comes up is cropped
badly, and I am unable to read the text.

Applies to Many Pages
- Scroller arrows have ugly purple border, due to image border not being set to "0"
- Scroller arrows overlap text at some points
- Page does not fit to 800x600, viewing it in this resolution shows a visible horizontal scrollbar

Other
- GIF's should be used in place of JPG's, for some instances. The lossy compression utilised by the JPG file format makes the site look messy and cluttered. If the image isin flat color or uses minimal tones, (e.g logos, images of text) it is better to use GIF
compression as it results in clearer images.

Regards,

Josh Lim
Josh.com.my
whoisadamking.com

The user, assuming he has the patience, would have to navigate all around your site until he could then find a link to what he was looking for in the first place. When a user cannot find the information he is looking for, he will leave, and you fail to make an impression. Or you may have made one - a negative one. Its not merely about having a good looking website, as opposed to one that can fulfill its purpose.




Knowledge is a good thing. The following links are a good starting point to find out more about the potential of the web. Some of them are knowledge resources, some demonstrate technology wherelse the rest exemplify good implementation of a web presence.

Thanks to Tim Yang, Adam Greenfield and others for suggesting these links.


http://www.clickz.com/
http://www.cyberatlas.com/
http://fuel.oyster.com/
http://www.designnotfound.com/
http://www.flash99good.com/
http://www.useit.com/
http://www.v-2.org/
http://www.webtechniques.com/
Various design and usability sites

http://www.precrime.org/
Promotion for the movie Minority Report

http://www.nikelab.com/
Promotion for Nike

http://www.thechillclub.com/
Promotion for a trendy cafe

http://www.i-move-u.com
Promotion for a Mitsubishi vehicle

http://www.yugop.com/
Interesting experimental flash site, with samples of corporate work as well

http://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/prosumer.asp
Something useful to know / practice

http://www.37signals.com/
A clean, usable HTML site

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