No Neck Coat of Arms
July 10, 2009Fakers and their Ignorant Victims
July 29, 2009There have been many times when a client asks me about using flash to build their web site. I usually immediately let out an internal sigh and begin to think about ways to explain to him why it’s not always the best idea. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against using flash for design, but I believe that if you can make the web site function the same using XHTML/CSS or Javascript, why use flash? Flash shouldn’t be for building full web sites in my opinion. It should only be used to create elements on your site which cannot be programmed with normal use of XHTML/CSS or Javascript.
I see most web sites which are fully designed in flash as tacky. There are definitely a few designers who have been able to pull off full web designs by just using Flash but most of those sites are usually designed for entertainment purposes only. One example of this would be movie web site. Movie web sites are usually designed to give the feel of the movie itself and have the user feel like they’re a part of that story. However, there are many ways to get that effect without the use of a full flash design.
Here are a few things about flash that every designer & client should consider:
1. Flash Intros and Splash Pages
Some of the most annoying and tacky web designs I have seen include a Flash intro or splash page. They usually take forever to load, even on a fast connection. The worst mistake that some flash designers make are forgetting or intentionally leaving out a SKIP button so that users can bypass the long and usually useless intro. I usually visit web sites to gather information about the subject I am seeking and Flash Intros just get in the way of that. It’s bad enough that you’ve created a splash page or intro to your site but please don’t make it worst by not letting the user skip it. If it’s true that you only have a split second to grab a user’s attention in order to keep him on your site, then you’ve just lost about 50% of your potential users to load time alone. Another 40% will most likely leave when they see that they cannot bypass your annoying splash page.
2. Navigation
Let’s say the other 10% have the time and patience to sit around waiting for your intro to end and site to load. Where do they go from here? Many flash designers have chosen to make the site cool and hip by creating a navigation system that is hidden under elements on the page and usually don’t even put descriptive text over those elements. I’m sure you’ve all seen sites which you must hover over all the elements just to find out which are clickable. Then you get to the page which it has linked you to only to find out that it’s not the page you were looking for. You then have to go back and forth trying to find the information you need because some shoddy designer decided to create a useless navigation system. By this time you’ve probably lost another 8% of users.
3. Sounds and Music set to Autoplay
I don’t know about you, but when I’m on the computer browsing the web I’m usually listening to music. It’s pretty irritating to land on a site with loud music or annoying sound effects that are set to automatically play. I then scroll down to hit stop or mute on the player only to find out that there is no player on the page and there’s also a missing mute button. Who ever created these types of sites must have for some reason decided that the only way for you to experience their design is through their horrible music and sound effects. Audio on flash web sites should always include a visible way to mute the sound. Not all your users are going to want to listen to it so don’t be surprised when you lose the rest of your 2% who actually decided to sit through the other annoyances that came with visiting your site.
4. Ranking and SEO
Unless Google comes up with a way to read exactly what’s on images and flash files, there’s no way your site is going to rank well if it’s built solely on flash. There are some ways nowadays to create flash elements which can be read by the search engine but if you’re whole site is just based on a flash movie, you can kiss that part of optimization goodbye. So by now you have a site which loads slow, confuses users, annoys them with intrusive music or sound effect and doesn’t rank at all with search engines. If you think about it, what’s the point of even having the site up if it’s just going to sit there with no real purpose? You’re basically just wasting your money on hosting and who wants to waste money on days like these? click here so you may know what’s everything that can be wrong about your website.
So In the end, I just want to make it known that I don’t completely hate the use of flash nor do I think it’s completely useless. I just ask that flash gurus keep it in the realm of animation, game and special effects other than web design. If there’s parts of site design that can be accomplished with XHTML/CSS or JavaScript, then by all means allow us programmers and designers to keep it that way. Do yourself and your potential customers a favor and take all of this into consideration before asking for a full flash web site design.
4 Comments
i have theme love this theme. very wallpaper friendly with the right sexy wall.
Good info. About seo, I thought Google and Adobe teamed up a while back and got pure flash sites indexed in their search engines, no? Or is it still not very accurate?
I whole heartedly agree with you on this. This is coming from another web developer too.
I think full flash sites are perfect for some clients — mostly movies, musicians/bands and artists looking for an over the top way to present their portfolio. I get so frustrated when clients that aren’t going to get any of the benefits of a Flash site demand one. I think the biggest problem is that to older, out of touch with technology clients, that Flash is still the big name.
I’m currently doing a website for a restaurant and the owner is demanding that it’s done entirely in Flash. I’ve explained to him the points you listed and one that might be as important — lack of mobile support. What if a patron was on their mobile phone on a lunch break from work and was figuring out where to get dinner? He hears it has a great menu? Can’t check it out online because it’s all in Flash. In the neighborhood and wants directions? Fucked, all Flash.
A lot of people use mobile devices more than their primary devices now. For casual web browsing I use my iPhone more than my laptop. Apple and a lot of other mobile phone manufacturers haven’t found a good way to render Flash on the phone so they just omit it. That’s one part of the mobile browsers, but now netbooks are becoming so popular that if someone has a solid desktop they’ll buy a netbook in lieu of a more traditional laptop. I was playing around with my friend’s netbook and it ran Flash sites like shit because of how processor intense some sites can be. Even if the processor is fast enough the screen’s resolution is so low that you’ll have to scroll in your browser to see the whole Flash site. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to put up with that shit just to see a website.
I don’t know if you’ve experienced this too, but I’ve found the best working relationships I have w/ clients come when they say “I trust you, do what you think is best” and the worst come when someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about will try to art direct you and tell you they know what’s best because of something their nephew told them.
Web design is such a love / hate relationship. The biggest thing I don’t like about it is that my happiness usually hinders on who my client is at the time.
I can’t agree with you more. That is definitely one big point I left out of my post and I hope that anyone reading the information on this page about flash reads your comment as well.
I have a G1 Android phone and I use it more than my laptop as well. When I’m out in public and looking for somewhere to go or information about a place I’m heading to, It’s much easier to pull out the cell phone than it would be to load up a laptop and search for an open wifi connection.
Sites completely designed in flash are useless to me at that point and I end up spending time searching for other sources of information other than the company dot com.
One other thing about flash that I don’t like is that it’s way more time consuming to keep the site up to date. If the client wants to be able to update minor things on the site themselves, it’s definitely much easier to have an XHTML/CSS site with some type of scripting than it is to compile a flash project for every little change needed.
The best way to go about dealing with these types of clients is to let them know the big downsides with what they’re looking to do and explain it to them in a manner that they will understand. At the end of the day, they are the one paying you to do what they ask and the client needs to be happy with what they get.