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The Proper Use of
Flash
Flash,
flash, flash...
How effective is your site design? Should you convert your
whole site to Flash or just add a it as an option? Does it
matter? Not much more than a few months ago, you could
visit a site and be given a choice of whether or not you
wanted to view the site as straight HTML or Flash... we
see a growing trend on the internet that is an even better
idea. A growing number of sites are no longer offering two
versions, but are embedding a small Flash file straight
into their HTML sites and we think this is a great idea.
You don't miss out on the whole page and navigation if you
choose not to download the plugin and if you want to see
the dynamic animation of Flash, you can! It's great for
the webmaster/designer who doesn't have to create two
complete versions of a site, and it's even better for the
user.
The
more choices you give your visitor, the more they will
like it and let's not forget who you're trying to please
with your design... your visitor! Rule #1 - Don't
aggravate your visitors! Most people aren't impressed by
the capabilities of Flash and get peeved by too much of it
(which causes long loading times) if it keeps them from
easily navigating and finding what they're looking for. If
you don't have a good design and great content to begin with, no amount of
Flash will make it any better.
If
I have to sit through another Flash movie that won't let
me exit or turn that darn music off again, I'm going to
scream... I usually make a swift departure and probably
won't come back, neither will your visitors if you abuse
it. Don't get me
wrong, I love Flash, it's one of my favorite programs to
play with. I think it's great if it's not abused
or over used and I do incorporate it into many sites
whenever I can. It will never replace HTML as the standard
in web page design because of it's weight, but if it's used right
and conservatively, it can and
does make most sites more interactive, attractive and
impressive. I also think the best use of Flash is for
multi-media demos and distributable marketing and
advertisement software. It's come a long way in the last
few years to interact with server scripts and databases to
increase it's speed. There are a lot of sites where Flash
is just not appropriate.
So, go Flash
it up, but analyze your site stats, study examples of
great sites and always listen to feedback because what
really matters is what your site visitors think about it.
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