Flash or Not to Flash?

[J_Paul]

<mod note: I brought this back to the top because I think it is a viable discussion these days and I will be adding more content to this forum to grow its user base. I would love to here the current forum users’ perceptions on this topic. - ghstdrgns>

Do designers really pay attention to audience and companies when they decide if they should use Flash or Static HTML.

Should companies lean more towards Technology or should they lean toward audience and purpose?

[MtraX]

Hi Paul.

I chose Audience. The reason for that is because I believe that every website should have a target market. I mean what's the whole use of a website that doesn't attract any visitors? It's usually the first question that I ask my clients - "Who's your target market and what goals do you want this website to achieve for you?". Most clients retort with I want to be listed high in search engines (those who know what a search engine is!) and sometimes they say that they want to wow their audience, which is when I suggest some flash content.

One of my clients produces breakfast cerials and other foods and are well known in our country - they got thousands of hits without even trying, so they had more of a tendency to go towards animation and flash (with the re-design), especially capturing a younger audience.

It all depends on what the client really wants his site to do for him! Hopefully most experienced web designers are able to guide and tutor them towards the best possible solutions and offer them something that's suitable towards budget and goals.

Just my 2c!

Cheers
Dirk

PS - Can I have an avatar?!

[J_Paul]

It's good to see that more designers are paying attention to audience and content rather than just making a nice looking site.

Keep posting and I'll see what I can do about getting you an avatar!

[lafe]

I agree with MtraX,

I voted for purpose. Purpose should be the key of any design, whether website or even flyer. The purpose will target who your audience is and/or who you want them to be. This will then allow you to strategicly plan which technologies should be used/implemented to capture that target group.


Lafe

[J_Paul]

I had a meeting with a client a few weeks ago and I shocked myself completely.

The client requested that I design a Flash intro for his site. Before I could think twice the words had already come out of my mouth.

"Why do you want a Flash intro for your site?" I asked.

His response was that he wanted to outline his company's offerings.

So I responded "Knowing that most of your viewers are on dial up connections, you'll be cutting out over half of your possible clients by doing this. Doesn't the site itself tell the viewers what you do? Wasn't that the purpose of building the site in the first place?"

After much discussion I persuaded the client to stick with static HTML for this particular project.

In a way I felt that I had turned my back on Flash. After pondering for several weeks now I know that I had made the right decision in not making the Flash intro for the client. I know I would have designed a great intro, but that's not what I was hired to do. I was hired to help the client send his message out to potential customers and in the bigger picture help him to make more business for his company. If I had decided to add the Flash Intro considering his audience, we wouldn't have fulfilled the purpose for the site.

Before you even start designing a site you need to take a look at what the project requires, the audience, and any other factors needed.

When I was in grade school I wrote a paper for my class assignment. After hours and hours of hard work I finally finished the paper and turned it in to the teacher. I remember Ms. Pennington saying to me "I can tell that you put a lot of work and effort into this paper, but what is the purpose for you writing this paper?"

Being a child of 12 I responded, "Because you assigned it to us?” She laughed and then told me, which has stuck through writing into design, every paper that you write needs to have a purpose. You need to have a reason for writing, or else you're wasting your time.

Now, before I even move the mouse to start designing a site, I pick up my pen and paper and just as I would write a story. I go through all the steps that you would if you were going to write a paper for your 2nd period English professor.

Now I hope you can see that a lot more goes into a site than just the "pretty" graphics. I hope the next time you'll do your duty as a designer and try your best to help make the Internet easy to use.

When you're building your site, or your client's site, ask yourself, "Is the site accomplishing its purpose?" If you say yes, then you've done your job as a designer.

===================================

Content comes first!

Now that you have your Purpose ready, it's time to look at your content and your design.

Isn't the point of web design to portray information for viewers? Each site has a purpose for being on the web (or should anyway). For entertainment, for business, for facts, for school, etc. The reason we design is to make information more accessible for the viewers of the Internet.

It's our job to make the Internet easy to use.

If we are too worried about how the design looks without giving much thought to the content involved we are cutting out the whole reason we built the site.

To Share Information!

I notice myself designing sites, then looking back and them and saying, "um... that doesn't quite look like I want it to". After making a thousand versions of the same site I finally realized what I was doing wrong. I was paying more attention to the design of the site than the reason I had intentionally built the site - to share information. On every single design the content was difficult to read. The over all look of the site was nice, but I was neglecting the content.

There are thousands of sites out there that have great content, but lose viewers within the first 10 seconds because it's difficult to read, the page is loading too slow, they can't find the navigation or they can't understand how it works because it's not labeled, and tons of other "design" flaws. This has become much more common since the release of Flash. Flash Designers get enthralled in the site because they want to design something "cool".

Macromedia is right along with them. Not in the "cool" factor exactly, but now that the bulk of their site is in Flash it takes FOREVER to load. I'm on a T1 here in the office and if a page doesn't load pretty quick, then something is wrong and well, Macromedia it HORRIBLE now. It takes me like 50% longer to find something I'm looking for, and you can't copy links, or right click and open in a new window. It's very very very frustrating. What's that old saying? Don't fix it if it ain't broke?

I'm so tired of finding sites that are 100% Flash with NO other purpose than to show a few neat little tricks. Or sites that take so long to load that you've already found the information in your second browser before the original site you were viewing has loaded. Or sites that are so bogged down with "crap" that you couldn’t find the good stuff. What gives?

Take a look at the most useful sites on the Internet:

CNN.com - Yahoo.com - FlashKit.com - MSN.com - Google.com

What do they all have in common? They way they portray their content. They also all have a purpose for existing.

So the next time you are working on your site take a look at your content and really consider if you are paying attention to content over design. Can you read the content easily? Does it load quickly enough? Flash is just a tool to help you be a better designer, so think about its use and how you can design more effectively.

Now I'll get off my soapbox and hope that FlashNewz readers will design for accessibility of information rather than just for "pretty" graphics.

[MtraX]

Well said Paul! I can see that you "put allot of time and effort into your reply" :-) I agree. One way of selling the flash intro though and still leave people's attention fixed when coming back to your site is by using cookies to NOT show the intro again the next time they come to the website and then maybe have a link to 'view intro' somewhere. That's an in between answer to the problem.

I usually go on a gut feeling. It's sometimes like first impressions when you meet people. If the whole "idea" of the company and how they come across says "fresh, interesting idea" to me I'll recommend flash. It takes time (in experience) to notice it. And then your client comes and tells you he wants to go corporate! It's a mixture of recommendations and client requirements!!

To cut it short, we can summarize it like you mentioned - cut the crap and cut to the chase! But use Flash intelligently and you're going to do a winning design.

Just some more ramblings...
Dirk

[mike35z]

Flash , swf files can load very quickly if the design of the page is done totally in vector animation. All of the artwork must be drawn using the flash tools. Flash files become very large when graphics are imported, or fancy artwork is imported as a large file. I have desgined several pages that load just as fast as an html. In fact my newest page loads in 1-2 sec...check it out if you do not believe it. Flash design is "freedom".

http://www.maverickimageusa.com/swf/z.swf

This is a demo page, I am still working on the text and additional information. It does represent the fast load time.

[mtheory]

Use Flash.

It's a matter of working with the lowest common denominator. There is no other technology with the versatility of Flash and cross browser compatability.

Yes, you can use combinations of dhtml and javascript to do a lot of what Flash can do but your consistency and compatability between browsers will be shot to hell.

http://imageselect.us
Web technology for photographers.

[muhrijn]

A well known discussion. But I think it's really easy to see what's better cause flash is really a way to show things in a dynamic more 'flashy' way. HTML is easy to load and in a lot of ways more businness likely if you see what i am saying. HTML really is more informative and really focusses on information. Flash can be distractive but beautifull in a way that it is pretty endless. Anyway it is both beatifull and I think it's cool to use best of both worlds. I think things like loading time and stuff has become less of an issue now that more and more people have broadband internet though.

[12Strong]

Usually I would jump to the defense of Flash at all costs. Mostly because I fell in love with Flash as soon as I opened the program and our love affair just keeps getting spicier every time I open it.

As I have grown older and wiser I realize that there really isn't a cut and dry solution to everything. It is possible to have a beautifully designed, content rich, user friendly flash site. And it is possible to have an amazing interactive experience utilizing HTML and other various "static" languages.
(I call them static, others might use another term)

There are three rules that I try to stick by at all times (even when it pains me to do so)

1.Flash intros, whether you are using a flash or HTML site - are not acceptable. These are a pain in the butt and avoiding them will only do you good. (the only exception I make albeit a small one, is for an animated loader screen in a flash site)

2. Good (or great!) Design is not dependant on what medium you use, if a customer or colleague automatically associates either Flash or HTML with good design, gently but firmly assure them that a flash site and an HTML site can look identical to the user and only the developer would know (except maybe if they don't have the plugin). Eye-catching design is dependant on you, the designer.

3. Never confuse Design with Development.
Design is how it looks, development is how it works.
One of the big mistakes is thinking that the term "works" means that nothing gives you an error and that none of the scripts are buggy.
I have always classified something that "works" as;
it effectively communicates to its audience, the content is easy to read and to find, navigation is intuitive and it loads relatively fast. I guess all the scripts working is good too!

I don't know if I agree with you muhrijn, HTML doesn' t alwasy focus on the delivery of information like you say it does. That is dependant on good development.
I have seen some pretty confusing HTML sites in my time.

All in all a good discussion....but I don't think that anyone will ever really truly resolve it. Its all a matter of opinion!

[ather143]

Compnay should know more about audience and the important thing is the purpose of the site.

Originally Posted by J_Paul

<mod note: I brought this back to the top because I think it is a viable discussion these days and I will be adding more content to this forum to grow its user base. I would love to here the current forum users’ perceptions on this topic. - ghstdrgns>

[flashfast]

flash files become very large when graphics are imported

Not true. I'd suggest using Freworks to 'optimize' bitmaps and then import to flash. Bitmaps can really enhance a web presentation - there's no reason thery can't be a few k in size. Also too many vector elements in Flash can slow the processor and even cause freezing. Sure, they are small in size, but vector calculation really chews into a processor e.g I'm using a new mac G4 1.4G processor and I still have to design elements on the stage not to overload the processor and slow down the intended frame rate.

To the main question of this sticky. It's not a real conundrum - it's like asking if apples are better than oranges on a table. Why not use both - html and flash. People love Flash, they also like static images, they like plain html text etc. So give em apples, oranges and throw in some pears!

As for SEO - my site scores first 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN. None of them have seemed to regard flash as detrimental to their database results.

It's not common sense to use one and not the other. Flexibility is the key to success - don't weigh yourself down.

[greeneagle]

Flash augments a Site very nicely. For visitor appeal it can go a long way, saying many words in motion, such as demonstrating how a product works.

Content depth and uniqueness are always going to be KING. Sure Google indexes Flash, but most Flash sites are poorly designed for the SEs.

An what about the need for "static textural internal links"?

IMO - Our only use for FLASH is augmentation like we used for this client (notice that we had to play some serious games to get the site to validate):

www.tubeltechnologies.com

Why don't more developers mix HTML and Flash to serve both viewers and SEs?

Ken

[greeneagle]

Validating HTML with Flash embedded:
http://www.w3schools.com/flash/flash_inhtml.asp
Ken

[RadarCat]

Originally Posted by muhrijn

I think things like loading time and stuff has become less of an issue now that more and more people have broadband internet though.

Maybe if you live in a big city, but for those of us on the edge of nowhere in rural areas, downloading at 26.4 Kbps is FAST with the old clunky telephone equipment that we have to put up with if we can't afford a $99/month satellite internet hookup. The guy that owns our local ISP here in the Texas Hill country downloads at 12 Kbps at his home!

I rarely go back to a site with Flash unless it is of extreme utility.

[MarcGrobman]

I LOVE Flash but discourage most of my clients from using it extensively. Search engines don't do a good job of indexing it. And I really dislike intros unless they are incorporated into the main site navigation.

At the same time, I think complete Flash sites have their place when glitz is the highest priority. And, if the budget is there, Search Engines can be fully accommodated with a mirror HTML website.

We just completed this site, and it is even over-the-top for my taste. We just could not have done this without Flash. Once we complete the alternate HTML site, it should do well with Search Engines too....

http://www.curtisadams.com

I agree that Flash sites do not have to take long to download. Stuffing them with video and music creates that problem. But there are lots of great uses of Flash that come from very small files.

[etechsupport]

I think flash has its browser limitations, most flash sites tend to leave you looking at a "loading..." animation. The question, though: is it better to have one very long wait while an entire site downloads, or a very shorter waits every time you click?

[robjean]

Why not give your users a choice ??
A simple landing page with 2 links.

Flash or no Flash.

Just a thought.

RobJean.

[mymusic1234]

I personally don't like a lot of flash if it's the first thing you are going to see, simply because of loading speed.
There is nothing more annoying than a black page saying loading.......
I visited a site like that today and quickly left.