13
Feb
Too much of anything can be a bad thing. But too much Flash could be costing you visits to your website. We have a look at some of the reasons Flash is not always the best solution and why indeed many web gurus avoid it all together.
Flash is a phenomenal technology. In the days when web standards were poorly adopted, browsers weren’t very sophisticated and connection speeds were poor, Flash changed the way we used the web by offering a lightweight, platform independent technology that allowed us to deliver very rich multimedia experiences.
Of course with great power comes great responsibility and as such we were plagued by hideous Flash sites, bad pre-loaders, splash screens and a host of highly irritating methods of implementing site navigation. Fortunately things have moved on, or rather web developers have moved on and now tend to stick to using Flash for what it really works for - animation and multimedia content delivery.
We still see our fair share of entirely Flash based websites however, particularly popular with huge brands - Nike, Audi, Sony etc. Personally I dislike Flash when used to entirely displace conventional hypertext based sites. Why? The telephone is a universally ubiquitous design. It doesn’t matter if I am in Japan, Australia, Mexico or Manchester, if I pick up a phone I will be able to use it. The same is true of the world wide web - within reason.
A web browsers filled with hypertext and hyperlinks is a pretty easy concept to grasp, learn and live with. As soon as these elements are pushed aside and re-defined for a proprietary website we begin to place demands on the novice user. In business terms we may be losing customers by trying to be too clever. But beyond personal preference there is a more tangible reason to think twice before opting for Flash - the search engine.
There are countless websites out there, entirely built using Flash and we hardly ever see them. Why? Because search engines simply ignore them because there is no contextual gubbins to mathematically compute and rank. This is not a problem if you’re Coca-Cola or Nike, as you really don’t need to put great effort in to ensure you are top of the list in Google. If you’re not Nike you may be throwing away business because your customers simply can’t find you.
Okay so a million Flash developers just stood up and shouted in unison at how you simply can’t get rich, beautiful websites without Flash. Wrong. With todays browsers and a multitude of savvy CSS based design and elegant use of Javascript / AJAX it is possible to produce glorious websites that have enough semantic detail to ensure good ranking in any search engine.
So do I hate Flash? No. Flash is fantastic. You can do great things with Flash, particularly with the new(ish) Actionscript 3.0. But my point is this. Think about what you need before thinking about what you want. Then ask if what you want can be delivered using search engine friendly technologies. If finally Flash is the only way, ask to what extent this feature is improving your sale potential. If it’s a vital component ensure incorporate the content into a content rich, well indexed environment - don’t just make your entire site with Flash.
Customers and business comes first, or another way function before form. It’s perfectly acceptable to include Flash in a website when suitable - but don’t assume Flash is the ‘only’ way.