Considerations in designing for Flash (5)

[Team AL]

I am part of a production team responsible for producing a promotional "viewbook" for a university. We are fairly proficient in Flash, but wanted to make sure we did not forget any of the "ins and outs," in designing for flash, due to our soemwhat hectic schedule.

The project is intended to be viewed on the web (by a variety of browsers, as encompassing as possible). We are trying to focus on designing one site that can be optimized for both high and low bandwith, since we are limited in our production schedule and monetary budget. We are looking for as much information as possible so we can design around any limitations we might encounter. Some of our questions include:

Though Flash can be relativley small, file wise, does a low bandwith site have to be html with Flash inserts/"drop-ins?" If it can be Flash, does it have to be of the lowest quality factor, and if so, is that quite apparent in its viewing and playback?

Any size parameters (sound, graphics, total completed size, etc.) we should be aiming for during our production stage?

Any differences between low and high bandwith flash sites, in general?

The size of this post might be very overwhelming, but any and all responses are more than appreciated and will be given more than full attention.

There is a good chance your response might warrant much more space than a text field on a bulletin board system, so please feel more than free to email us at the email address provided with this account.

-Team AL

[phacker]

My homepage is aimed towards friends of mine that don't have the latest and greatest in terms of hardware or connections. Some complain that my files take a while to download--but I've added preloaders that only load a portion and then play. And many have commented that my files take less time to load that a lot of sites. I stopped trying to design for all browsers a long time ago. I was spending more time testing than designing. Someday maybe there will be an industry standard. I try to design for IE/Navigator 4 and above. I set my individual file limits to a self imposed 200k. I personally hate to wait for anything bigger than that--if I don't know what to expect. My site is basically all Flash with a few html buttons(links) on the bottom. Tried the frameset and layered thing--and found that straight Flash worked better for me. It's a matter of taste and design. I personally hate those java/cgi/asp sites that take forever to load.