Personally, I prefer having everything embedded inside the Flash file. Once you start linking out, it is more likely that the user will not come back to the main interactive. If everything is self-contained, you can also design the multimedia components to fit nicely into your package.

The only advantage to linking out would be for advertisers to put more ads on the extra content. I would stay away from this as much as possible unless you are forced to … and even then make sure you code it so it opens a new tab and doesn’t open on top of the Flash file. (_blank vs. _self)

Hope that helps!

For the basketball timeline I created, would you suggest linking to stories, photo galleries, PDFs, etc. within the Flash project itself?

Or, would you rather the links go to specific pages on our Web site with that content popping up on its own Web page outside the Flash project (say, a link to a PDF leads to our Web site, where the PDF is the only item on that specific Web page.)

Which do you prefer and why?

Again though I wish they had incorporated save/print/email functions once a user made his/her selections. Otherwise, I am a fan of this piece!

It’s not so much a fill-out bracket, but more of an analyzer.

Great work on the project. I really like how well designed each section is, with the photos, text and background image nicely displayed in a collage effect for each year.

I would suggest adding some color to the intro page, possibly displaying the most well-known picture to break up the text a bit and draw the user into your presentation.

Also, I would have loved to see some interactive elements within each year (such as links to archive stories, pdf documents, audio clips for a more detailed report from Hansen, video clips from the more recent years, etc).

Lastly, I would suggest separating the navigation from the header either with a subtle font size and/or color change, a thin line or a tabbed effect. The latter would better connect the nav to the content rather than the header and could display which year the user had clicked on by changing its color, etc.

Great job overall and thanks for submitting your project!

http://www.azstarnet.com/consecutivecats/

Just wanted to plug an interactive timeline I built in two days for my newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star.

The University of Arizona men’s basketball team will be heading to Miami later this week for its 25th consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament. It’s the longest active streak in the country (your UNC Tar Heels hold the all-time record with 27).

To commemorate, we pulled stats, photos, historic pages and commentary from our columnist Greg Hansen, who has been there for each of the team’s tournament appearances.

I built this timeline in two days, using code from a previous timeline I had constructed. Would love to get any and all feedback. Go Wildcats!