Copyright © 2008 - 2009 evodesign. all rights reserved.
05
May
The 2010 and 14th Webby Awards have been announced and celebrate the very best in current web design, interactive advertising, online film and video and mobile web development. But are they, once again, a little Flash heavy in this contemporary world of standards?
Certainly this question comes at a time when debate, if not down right argument, has reached epic proportions over whether or not Flash has any future on the web. The press over the past 10 days has been littered with punch, counter-punch between Apple and Adobe with regards the suitability of Flash as a platform for our mobile future. So, are the Webby’s, which have always been a little pro-Flash, beginning to lose step with reality?
Even a casual glance through this year’s winners reveals a significant number of Flash based websites, which leads once to wonder - what are the awards awarding? It is common knowledge that with the exception of a PC, Flash runs quite poorly on many devices. This is particularly evident under Safari on Mac OS X. This being the case, many of the websites in receipt of Webby awards provide a sub-standard user experience on a number of platforms. This is not to detract from their undoubted design credentials of course, but haven’t we now reached a point where web design is more than just - ‘pretty animation’?
30
May
I recently stumbled across the Bargain Booze website, and was instantly taken with the animated backdrop.
When I found it to be a Flash animation I was further impressed. Not only did I want to know how to use Flash scenes as a backdrop, I wanted to find a way to tie those backdrops to the bottom of the browser window.
Ignoring the Flash for just a moment; the object of this exercise is to position content at the bottom of the browser window and have it remain there, regardless of resizing or scrolling of the window; without Javascript. It can be done but it requires a few workarounds but it’s about the most elegant solution I’ve seen thus far.
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.
Copyright © 2008 - 2009 evodesign. all rights reserved.