| Flash is cool. Everyone says so. Well, everyone under 25 says so, and they are the arbiters of cool !!!
Every design school syllabus has a year or two for multimedia, and these schools use Flash as one of their key design software tools. It introduces young designers to the concept of programming and interactivity in website, and is often the only way they can build components like slides shows and menus. Flash is bundled with the ubiquitous graphic design software Photoshop and therefore easily available to student.
Unfortunately, every year thousands of design student go into the real world of web development knowing no other design tool. They show clients all the whiz-bang stuff that can be done on Flash, and often they truly believe they are delivering the best solution to their clients.
Unfortunately while Flash is ultra cool, it has a few little problems if you want your website to do a little more than look cool. Most clients who bring me their flash website define their problems easily.
- It looks really great ...we just need to you do a bit of search engine optimisation - for some reason we end up on page 12 of Google
- It looks really great... we just need you do add a few more pages.
- It looks really great... can you make it a bit faster
- It looks really great... but our MD says the menu won't show on his blackberry/iPod/cell phone/Notebook/Mac...
My answers are not what they want to hear
- Search engine rankings are built into the content and page design. Google cannot read a Flash file. Nothing that appears in the Flash file will be indexed. If your menu is part of the Flash file, Google believes you are a one page website with no content, and ranks you accordingly.
- Flash websites are almost impossible to edit and update. Some designers know to link to text files to read regularly changing text, but most don't have this level of expertise.
To change the website you need the original Flash working file. Even with that file, it is difficult to change much more than text. Without the file, the site needs to be recreated from scratch. Unfortunately the young designers who tend to use Flash, also tend to not have consistent backups, and go overseas for long periods.
- Flash is slow - even a single graphic runs a LOT of programming in the background. That is no problem when you are running your cool Flash file on your desktop - but put it on a website on South African internet lines and most people will press "skip". If you don't offer "skip" they press "close".
- Flash is supported and promoted by one company - Adobe Macromedia. As big as Adobe is in the field of graphic design, they are not a big enough international player to influence the IT industry to adapt it's standards for a dying technology.
Blackberry says it's "working on" a plugin to view Flash, Apple admits it's not even working on it. The cell phone manufacturers don't want to create plugins because the bandwidth isn't appropriate for cell phone speeds, and the interactivity offered is usually gratuitous.
As a clothes designer, you are taught to work with fabric and cut out and sew actual garments. As an architect you study engineering, concrete and the physics of your profession so that what you design can be built. The difference between the study of Fine Arts and the study of Design is that design is functional. It serves a purpose. This is a key aspect that is missing from web design as a budding design field. Design schools still focus on "cool looking" and ignore the fact that the website is a communication medium and that it has a job to do.
Usually whatever interactivity is built into Flash it little more than gratuitous imagery and funky moving elements. However some Flash is used wisely and well to add to the usability of the site. This is where Flash should be used - on small elements that don't affect search engine ranking, or navigation or general website practicality.
Like most things in life labeled "bad" - from guns to drugs - Flash has a role to play if it's used appropriately and well. Unfortunately - like guns and drugs - it ends up in the hands of the young and inexperienced.
So why doesn't your Flash Website play on an iPod? Learn more here...
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