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Thread: To Flash or Not to Flash...

  1. #1
    Modding with Class JabezStone's Avatar
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    To Flash or Not to Flash...

    Toward the middle of another thread here in the Boardroom, I almost chimed in to state my thoughts on how Flash should be used in this expanding Web. I declined to get into the shuffle because a)I've said it over and over again already, and b)I've said it over and over again already.

    I have begun to just skip over threads like this, because it's nearly tantamount to talking about politics, religion, or <gasp!> Mac vs. PC.

    Just when I thought I'd had it up to here <insert picture of hand held high over my head> with the discussion, I stumbled across this article over at clickz.com ...

    To Flash or Not to Flash

    It's a good article. Go read it.

    P.S. Oh, and as a caveat to this post, let me say that this article is primarily targeted toward the use of Flash in banner advertising, but it still has good relevance.

    My favorite quote from the article is near its end...
    Start with the user. Do your homework so you can make an informed decision. Understand how, when, and why users access the experience and design accordingly.
    Last edited by JabezStone; 12-21-2004 at 03:12 PM.

  2. #2
    Senior Member MG315's Avatar
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    Here's a white paper I wrote a long time ago about this, specifically citing a project we did for a client using all flash, then redid because it wasn't providing the results the client wanted:

    The Use and Misuse of Flash
    Bill Erickson: resume | portfolio
    1 | 2 | 3 | 4
    Great Designs for $100

  3. #3
    default user juxtaflo's Avatar
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    MG315, I think most of the issues you "fixed" were actually design issues and not related to Flash at all. The only ones that aren't, I listed below.


    - search engines can't pick it up (so they can't see any other pages of the website). - This is a valid concern, and the only one that I think Flash has still not addressed completely, although I do know that if you create a content management system as you said you did, you can redirect the spiders to your database to find your information.


    - Since the content is in a flash file, a visitor is unable to perform even basic actions: copy/paste, highlight, change font size and search the page for keywords (using the browsers find feature). - All of these things can be added in Flash, most of them very easily.


    - If William Pear International wants to fix a misspelled word, they need to contact us to make the necessary changes. The change itself takes much longer than it would on an ordinary html page (resulting in a higher maintenance cost for William Pear International). - You state in the next line that you created a CMS to solve this. You can't use that same CMS for your Flash site? That solution has nothing at all to do with Flash.

    Good article though Jabez. Thanks.

  4. #4
    Vote for your dog
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    One more nasty one about why not to Flash (shudder) is a number of anti-advertising applications come pre-set to ban anything flash from reaching the user's browser.

    Face it Flash was seriously abused in its early years with cheap but really anoying banner ads, sleazy ads containing repetetive motions :-), and self gratituitious intro movies that take twenty minutes to load up for those poor suckers on dialup.

    The ad-removal sostware treats the lovely application of Flash as a piece of trash. A lot of people are getting free advertising removal from their ISP's today and unless the user opt's back into receiving flash files.... and 2/3rds of the flash you get on the internet is cruddy or sleezy adverts ... (join friend finder ... image with the jiggly lady with chest acoutrements swollen bigger than her head ... and that was on a Yahoo site) ... so if the user doesn't opt back into seeing flash ... your hooped. And unlike many of the good folks here... do you really think your mom (i'm talking about the generic mom now) could possibly figure out how to configure the advertising blocking software on her computer. The package that was installed when she got her internet upgrade to high speed access. Do you think she'd even try considering you have repetedly told her not to do anything at all but use her word processor, email and web browser.


    Sorry, got ranting a little but really its true. In the end Flash may get a fare shake to apear as a website but so far many people view it as a plague on the internet. I love to do various things with the app, but my wife intentionally pulls out the plug-in for Flash from her machine. She will happily look at some of my creations on one of my machines. Flash is banned from hers. FTR she's a database and reporting type person who can rip happily through windows registerys. Not an unaware type of user ... unfortunately she considers Flash an unnecessary nuisance most of the time.
    Last edited by Orkar; 01-04-2005 at 11:50 PM.

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