There is no doubt about it. Flash is the
best tool in any web designers arsenal. It is easy to use
with phenomenal results. You can create a full blown website
in a couple of hours and the file size can be less than
the size of your average .JPEG file, but (and this is a
big but) it is still a plug-in. This means that you have
to download and install the latest flash player in order
to view the website. It is really not a big deal if you
are an intermediate to advanced user, which is what maybe
60% of Internet users are. However, that other 40% of people
may not feel secure having to download and install software
on their computer in order to view your site. Another downside
of a flash based site is the fact that web crawlers cannot
see the text content contained within the file. This means
it has no way to index your site, which can lead to poor
search engine ranking. Don't be put off with the down sides
of flash. There are ways around these problems.
-
Only use flash for graphical touches,
i.e., headers, images, navigation structure (as long
as the navigation structure is backed up with text links
to your pages as well).
-
Create a mirror site, which the user
will be automatically redirected to if the user does
not have flash installed.
-
Export the flash file in the lowest
version needed to be viewed. Unless you’re using features
that Version 3 does not support, there is no reason
to export the file in the latest Version 7. That way,
you don't alienate users who maybe have flash installed,
but not the latest version.
Flash should be used as an enhancement to
your site and not the main construction block. Unfortunately,
new technology advances more quickly than people do, so
the tools we have available today will not be used to their
full potential for a long time and, by that time, we will
have new tools to tempt us into making design mistakes.
Note: When you start thinking about your
web site, the most important thing to think about is your
target audience. For example, if your audience is schools,
a lot of schools have their internet security setting set
high so students are not looking at anything they shouldn't
be. If this is the case, then a lot of the time it will
block any site with flash installed because there is no
way to determine the content of the site.