Web design and Flash: non crossing lines

As time passes by Flash websites become less and less found among the ones we browse every day. It doesn’t impress me. Even if sometimes we don’t know the exact reasons why we still suspect this is the way it should be. However, there are companies or professionals who want to be represented in the Web by a Flash website. We need to tell them why this is not good.

When you ‘re hungry you can’t wait

Imagine someone who hasn’t eaten all day and it’s almost midnight. He’s hungry. He doesn’t care about the fork and he doesn’t care whether the food is warm or not. The same way a Web user appetites for real content. A Flash website makes him wait because it needs time to load or because effects prevent him from exploring the content.

Even worse, some users don’t even have the Flash plugin installed. Then they go somewhere else to find food.

When you ‘re hungry you don’t want to be fed by someone else

Imagine the same hungry visitor. He obviously doesn’t want to be fed by someone else. Web users want to control the interaction with a website and they expect certain things. Flash websites subtract control. We need to realize the Web is much different than TV or cinema. Interaction makes the difference. In the past we didn’t care that much about interaction. Not now.

According to this, even the “Skip intro” buttons are not good enough. When animation is not an ad is rarely important. People visit websites to explore the content, not the animation.

Respect accessibility

Web accessibility is impossible in Flash websites. Period.

Who can take the responsibility and leave users with disabilities outside? Have you ever tried to make the text bigger in a Flash website? It ‘s impossible. Theoretically, each Flash website should be go together with an HTML one.

What about SEO?

SEO becomes much more difficult in Flash websites. Actually a Flash website can never be optimized the way an HTML one can. Come on, we ‘re living in the era where SEO is a king and it can determine the success or the failure of a website and a business. You just can’t ignore this.

Designing in Flash is a difficult thing

Flash is software which becomes more and more complicated by time. Adobe clearly evolves Flash not for simple websites. Web games maybe? Videos? Mapping? You bet.

As a result creating a really stunning Flash website takes a lot of time and effort and this should keep mediocre developers away. It’s very rare to find a great Flash website and now imagine how much it would cost. 5 times a similar one in HTML. Why not? Now does the user experience is 5 times better than the one in an HTML website? I doubt. This is a problem which can’t be solved in my humble opinion.

The alternative…

is AJAX of course. Certain effects or solutions in usability are everywhere not only because AJAX is a trend but also because we needed to address issues a better way. As a result we had to discover new means of interacting with websites and JavaScript happened to be handy.

What is even better is the fact solutions in AJAX tend to focus on the user not on the developer. It must be one of the most promising things which happen in the Web nowadays.