'New' official website celebrates soft opening

We’re entering a new era. The old, 2009-launched official Year of a Million Dreams website has just seen its first major update in all that time. Whilst new pages themselves are yet to come, this soft opening finally replaces the squashed, Flash-intensive, design with a, erm, wider Flash-intensive design.

From Disney World Magic....

...to Walt Disney Magic!

The change is radical in some places — not only are pages finally allowed to “breathe” with a wider format, but the logo has finally thrown off that curvy corner enclosure it’s been stuck inside-of in so much print and advertising since as far back as 2006.

Because yes, in other areas it’s not too different — the menu options remain essentially the same, simply listed all on one line and presented using basic HTML rather than animated Flash as before, a big “no no” for accessibility these days.

And that old dependence on Flash-heavy pages? Still there. The entire home page, including the top menu buttons (which aren’t even animated) are rendered using this animation format, including a musical intro which doesn’t remember your “mute” preference. Perhaps just temporary?

So far, so good. And there’s hope for the future — thankfully, we’ve heard that new pages are being developed. Perhaps that main box on the new homepage, stating the CELEBRATE! is “landing on this website from August 13, 2011″ gives a clue as to when they’ll launch? Only a week left to wait and see.