HTML

So you want to spice up your website, add a splash page perhaps, maybe some video. Maybe you’ve thought about outsourcing the flash to someone else. Here are 10 things you’ll want to consider before you hire a Flash designer.

10. Flash requires quite a lot of bandwidth - Flash files, especially if they use sounds or embedded movies, will take a long time to load, and the visitor may not have the best connection and, obviously, the patience to wait.

9. You could be at the mercy of the Flash developers FOREVER! - if you use 3rd party Flash developers, they might code the project so that you won’t be able to make any changes and have to hire them again, and again even for the smallest modification.

8. The “Back” button is usually disabled - if the Flash designer has used some trick such as meta refresh in order to disable the browser’s Back button, it is highly probable that the visitors might get frustrated and not want to start browsing your site over and over again. So they will leave. Besides that, Google’s AdWords doesn’t approve pages that have the Back button disabled. So, beware of this if you intend to promote your web site by using a PPC campaign.

7. Flash doesn’t care about your visitors’ needs –silly Flash intros and dumb sounds that you cannot turn off will drive your visitors away. Moreover Splash Pages don’t favor your visibility - they lack the text that contains the keywords identified as pertinent to your services / products; they only include one outgoing link and, most of the times, no back-link from another page; they often include re-directions, and most of the search engines will not include re-directions in their page index.

6. SWiSH is a heck of a lot less expensive than Adobe’s software. SWiSH is basically Flash for those without the wish/need/time and or finances to buy the actual software. And with all of its built in preset effects you’ll never need to understand concepts like frames, libraries, symbols etc.

5. Users recognize and are much more accustomed to using HTML form elements than they are of Flash form components hence less likely to understand how to use them. Seriously, how many different ways does there need to be to submit a form. Stop making me think already!

4. Whereas Adobe might have you believe that the obstacles for users with disabilities are derived from A. issues with the design or B. issues with the assistive technologies and not Flash, the truth is that this propaganda serves only to guide the spotlight away from major cross-browser accessibility issues encompassing Flash. The uses of wmode parameter for example, prevent assistive technologies from receiving information from a SWF. Meaning that a SWF will essentially be hidden from a screen reader. Yes, I know, this is not an issue in Internet Explorer, settle down, however true web accessibility can be best described as the ability of any user, regardless of disability and or web browser, to access the same content and information. The correct acronym for that is HTML.

3. Most search engines don’t like and don’t index Flash -not all the search engines can crawl and index the content of Flash, and if they do, it’s not free of errors. What is more they won’t be able to direct the visitors to the proper page. The truth is that without some type of clunky workaround, like creating HTML copies of all your Flash pages, Google wont index these pages.

2. Why even hire a flash designer? You can get a Flash template for less than sixty bucks- each Flash template is unique and completely customizable right out of the box. What is more, most quality template shops will provide you with a free sample template so you can evaluate the quality of the product and try your skills before you buy.

1. Don’t assume that everyone has the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player installed. While 90% of people do have the Flash plug-in installed, not everyone has the Flash 9 Player or even the Flash 5 Player installed. Should a user visit your site using an older, incompatible version of the Flash player, you could end up inconveniencing the viewer to the extent that she’ll never returns to your site again!

My point is – I don’t want anyone to tell you that Flash is the next best thing since sliced bread, and if you do decide to use it, do it in moderation everything in moderation, even moderation.

Share This