Flash is not sexy or so they say
May 1st, 2008
Catchy title, hot topic, one main goal. Delivering content to our audiences in the most logical, and accessible manner possible. When you break it down, Flash, and Web Developers alike are both, or should I say, should both be in the business of designing pages and applications for the end user is the easiest fashion.
Who are these users anyway?
Well, they are you and I, our parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, etc…But what the heck does that mean to us? They are just titles we give to people in our lives. No. They need to be segregated into more usable categories, ie; age, sex, location, you know, all those demographics. When designing an interface we need to be concerned with these traits as well as the marketing end of things. Obliviously if something is not visually appealing, you will probably not enjoy yourself, and or leave. What I think looks good might look completely awful to my dad, or mom. On the same token, what I think is easy to use, might be rendered unusable to others.
Bridging the gap
Ok, so we have figured out who are site is targeting, or at least who we want to target. The next step is to obliviously come up with a comp for how we want it to look and feel. Heck, we might have even got ahead of ourselves and thought about how we want things to function. This can be a dangerous thing, this functionality. Here in lies almost all of our usability, and accessibility issues.
Flash just looks really cool
That is true, when it is done right it can look really good. But remember, looks are only half the battle as we have already gone over. We might have gotten the user in the door, but now they are in for a long standing session if they cannot find a seat fairly quickly. What I am referring to is of course how the site functions. One of the biggest problems I think with Flash sites is that usually you are greeted with some type of elaborate or overly animated introduction, which can leave the user confused and thinking:
Is this a movie? What is going on here? How do I get it to stop? What was I looking for again?
We have all been there. There is a fine line between presenting information in a clever manner, and completely losing your audience.
Don’t send Flash to do a man’s job.
To me there is nothing worse than going to a site constructed almost entirely in Flash that at first glance you are like, “wait is this just straight HTML & CSS?”, nope they tricked you. I truly do not understand this one at all. If you want something to behave like HTML & CSS, why not construct it out of, oh I don’t know…HTML & CSS?
I think the back button is broken
Last year I was working with an older client who was trying to show me something on a project they had outsourced. It was a presentation made with Flash. They were having the hardest time in the world navigating this page. Of course this particular presentation was far from adequate and should never have been paid for, in fact they probably should have laughed at the developer and or burned his home to the ground.
I watched I don’t know how many times, them try to use the browser “back” button to navigate, and I am assuming you can guess the outcome. Even after instruction, they were still suffering, as was I…This is such a small little detail that I think some Flash Developers over look. I mean granted there are plenty of ways around this, but there is also that one time that someone will do it, get enraged and close your site.
That is not to say that there are not plenty of excellent Flash Developed sites out there…
- http://www.tvwonline.net/lab/pressconnect/
- http://www.gotoandlearn.com/
- http://rsizr.com/
- http://thefwa.com/
- http://fontsforflash.com/
- Posted at 11:46 am in development
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ifoh designs | Flash is not sexy or so they say
Flash is not sexy or so they say…read it please
Great points. I think when flash was new one person could build a great looking animation that could really wow people. It’s a lot harder to get that kind of impact now using flash because people have seen it. Add that together with the complexity of building a dynamic site and extra cost to do so and it’s easy to see why more and more designers are moving away from it.
Flash is nice depending on type of sites, recently I saw some nice sites from automobile industry - which are mostly designed using Flash - and they were done very professionally. But one will expect from automobile company to use Flash as mean to attract more users and more customers, it can give end user way to navigate and use site in many new ways and do different kinds of things. But I personally criticize use of Flash to make the whole site just for sake of it - if there’s a way to make it using HTML/CSS, why not? If you’re using Flash for developing whole site, try to use it to develop new ways of presentation, something that is new on the scene - and today are many sites that are following that type of thinking and I’m glad to see that.
Flash has its uses and for me it’s only to enhance XHTML/CSS, not replace. For example, the graphs used in Google Analytics are a great example of how Flash can be useful, but if they ever replaced the entire XHTML/CSS interface with a Flash interface, I’d be off elsewhere.
I love how people always hop on the bandwagon and down talk flash and use the same reference to the ridiculous intro days.
Also, might want to take a look here http://exanimo.com/actionscript/statemanager as making the back button work in flash is very doable. Flash and Flex are capable of building beautiful RIA’s and interactive websites that are SEO friendly and very user friendly. If you’re going to hate on something do it for good reason not just because you don’t know how to use the technology. That is like me saying CSS/XHTML is crap because there are a couple newbies out there creating hideous sites that are a coding disaster.
@Justin DiMucci. You said: “I love how people always hop on the bandwagon and down talk flash and use the same reference to the ridiculous intro days.”
I don’t think people are necessarily saying that flash is bad, but some of the stuff ( most of it in my opinion ) that is created using flash is just not up to scratch, and such websites would be more effective without using flash at all.
But as the article points out, done correctly it can improve a site greatly.
I’m all for a bit of flash, but a fully flash site (in most cases) are just off-putting. Great read!
Thanks to everyone for the comments, and your input/feedback.
Liam, you pretty much summed up my response to Justin, but I wanted to add a few things.
First, thank you Justin for that link to control your back button. That certainly could put an end to that trouble, if of course the user is browsing with JS turned on…
One would hope a developer at that level would be inserting their Flash in an unobtrusive manner, using JS so this might not be an issue.
All I am saying is there are many many more “if” factors when it comes to Flash, that I still think many developers are just not up to speed on and can ruin the user experience.
Anyway, thanks for stating your case.
I think that develop a full website in flash that it’s user friendly and seo firendly it’s really, really hard, there’s a lot of stuff to take care about it, butthe results are visually more atractive and that’s what people care, not the technology or if it’s a css website or a full flash website. It’s better than AJAX for the asyncronic stuff and if you use deep linking, the back button works wondefull.
One good example is http://www.rr.com/, developed by Fantasy Interactive.
I think the main problem with flash it’s the big amount of people using it in the bad way.
2 things.
1) If you look at Web Design companies who use flash - its there necessity. They want there clients to get an impact. These companies dont give a rats… if they dont show up in search engines or whatever small BLOGs think of them. They work for the most elite in the world. And i beleive thats what counts.
Example: 2advance - FI ( fantasy interactive )
2) If people dont know flash and what it can actually DO. THOSE are the ones who criticize IT.
Cheers,
Raj
Bottom line Raj…If I am blind, or disabled, or just do not want to have things shoved in my face, I have that right as a user. If I choose not to browse with JS enabled, that is also a right. What I will do is, leave the site, and encourage others not to visit if asked.
If you read the last part there you would have seen that I pointed out sites that have done it “right” not just “done” for the heck of it.
Yes i read that part.
However, thats just a coverup for most of the things written in the overall post.
The point is - there are gazillional sites made evryday world over. even if you tell your freinds, relatives, mafia, or whoever that dont visit it. TRUST ME. they will still visit it.- just on the point, that you dint want them to.
Some companies dont want mamma pappa stores to come visit them. VICE Presidents, CEO’s dont know what the hell is CSS/ AJAX, JS is.
They want to see what looks best, and what is the reputation of the company they want to hire.
I have been reading small blogs everywhere who criticize flash to the extent. you have you own opinion, i agree to some parts that you say.
But to an overall market i would say. GROW up.
If you cant do something. Shut up.
Moreover, if you would like a little comment.
Your website design is not good at all.
if i was the ceo of NIKE, i would never hire your company. you know why?
coz i dont know CSS/AJax or anything else.
I just need good looks and functionality to serve my purpose online.
CHeers,
Raj
Raj, you are missing the point of the article, and instead are taking offense to it for some strange reason.
I addressing the fact that a lot of “designers” are using Flash just to say they use Flash.
I wish you would address the first part of my last comment though. Take another read.