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6 Places That Flash Does Not Belong

wakeuplater.com — Sometimes, a Flash implementation hurt the company, detracted from the site's purpose, and had poor results (all the while costing them more to build the site in the frst place). So in a world where too many companies want Flash websites and too few designers use Flash very well, here is a brief list of places that Flash currently does not belong..

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  • plainanywhere, on 07/07/2008, -0/+13most flash sites just end up pissing me off.
    • featherMARIO, on 07/07/2008, -0/+3"Web designers" who default to Flash every time will soon find themselves discarded.
    • NGliam, on 07/07/2008, -0/+3Flash should never be used for the entire site.. no matter how good the developer is. Flash is brilliant but it should be used with html, not to replace it :P
    • dshPls, on 07/08/2008, -2/+1I know Digg is full of Flash haters(witnessed above) but that just gives me less competition when scouting out all the fun design work out there. Stick to your boring ass "insert random tech company who needs to display 5000 TPS reports online" websites, I won't stop ya.

      This list could easily be named "6 types of websites that suck to work on."
  • ConfusedCartman, on 07/07/2008, -3/+9For you lazy people:

    1. Website Intros
    Let's get the obvious out of the way. Websites exist for their visitors, not the other way around. I see almost no use ever for a Flash intro (or really, any website intro), unless your website strategy includes annoying visitors and wasting other people's time. This isn't to say that you shouldn't have a decent preloader or a smooth transition into your site, but anything more than a second or two of Flash before the actual site is a bad idea.

    2. Sites with SEO Objectives
    Although it's possible to get semi-decent SEO rankings in certain situations for a Flash site, you're just not going to achieve the kind of SEO success for a Flash site that you can for an HTML equivalent. Granted, SEO isn't an easy game to play even if you don't use Flash (see our SEO tutorial), but if your website strategy has any SEO expectations, stay away from it.

    3. Menus/Navigation on an HTML Site
    Menus have a singular and key function on every website -- to get visitors quickly to the content they want. The words "pretty," "cool," or "smooth" should never be in the same league as "accessible" when it comes to navigation. A Flash menu runs the risk of leaving many users stranded (not everyone has Flash, including an increasing user base that surfs with mobile devices). Furthermore, search engines won't get around too well on a website that lacks true links for its menus. And if you really can't live without the "cool" menus, there are more than enough DHTML/Javascript based menus that can transform simple list tags into great looking navigation systems.

    4. Informational/Content Sites
    A couple years ago, I did a website for a large church organization that had dozens of menu items and many pages of content per menu item. They insisted on a Flash site where you never had to use the browser scroll, and at the same time, it should look just like an HTML site (which of course, begs the question, "Why are we using Flash?"). Needless to say, they ended up with a very cumbersome website that costs much more than an HTML site, both to build and maintain. Furthermore, visitors complained about the site usability, preferring even a simple text-only site where they could actually get the information they wanted. In general, you'd be surprised how often a visitor will take information accessibility over a great-looking Flash one. If your website's primary purpose is delivering informational content, avoid Flash.

    5. E-Commerce
    Anyone who has followed the development of the Flash platform will concede that it has come a long way in terms of functionality and programmatic flexibility. With the advent of Flex, Flash is more equipped for application-type usage than ever before. There are even some really great-looking examples of stores built on Flex. However, I think Flash for e-commerce should still be avoided for two primary reasons:

    a) Flash stores can still be pretty complex. Your typical HTML e-commerce site is straight-forward with a catalogue, account, and checkout system, all of which can be edited and modified independently with relative ease. Although a Flash store will have the same basic components, you're still dealing with a platform with more integrative complexity and less room for error. In the last few months, I've come across two websites that have attempted to implement a Flash e-commerce solution. On both, I managed to somehow find a weird functionality bug, and having lost confidence in the site, went elsewhere for my purchase. So unless you have a great Flash developer and a solid understanding of consumer UI, stick to non-Flash e-commerce for now.

    b) E-commerce conventions are very powerful. For the last decade, online shoppers have become accustomed to how e-commerce sites work. Any great derivation from what they're used to will often result in lower ROI. Although some Flash carts look really snazzy and have more functionality than their HTML counterparts, the proof is always in the customer conversion rate. And having worked on and seen sites that have attempted both types of carts, even "ugly" HTML e-commerce sites will often outperform Flash carts. Online consumers are used to clicking on items, not dragging items to a "cart section." They want to click "Add to Cart" and "Checkout" and go from page to page. Sure, this may change in the coming years, and yes, innovation is a good thing, but e-commerce conventions still hold too strong a sway to go with Flash e-commerce just yet.

    6. Sites Requiring Heavy Management
    Although Flash has a few solid options for content management, if you or your client will be constantly editing a website, Flash can easily become more of a hurdle in keeping it updated. This is mainly because clients always end up wanting to edit more than you tell them is possible. And there are few things worse in a freelancing business than maintaining parts a Flash site for years. If you know a client has high maintenance needs, make sure you address such future issues before even starting the site.

    Of course, there are some websites where Flash can be a good choice or at least a "possible" choice. Some such sites include portfolios, promotional sites (movies, product "exploration" sites, etc.), sites with videos or games, and small boutique sites for creative agencies or possibly high-end design products (and even then, it's never a bad idea to have either an intermediary HTML portion or a full-fledged HTML version). Just don't ever forget that every website has a primary purpose, and if Flash doesn't contribute to that, it's probably a detriment and a liability.
  • featherMARIO, on 07/07/2008, -0/+10Flash does not belong on any non-video website.
    • dshPls, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1Flash will soon be the platform for online 3d-gaming from the browser, look up Papervision 3D or check this website out: http://ecodazoo.com/ (Yah I know there's a long load)
  • philostrato, on 07/07/2008, -3/+9flash blows
  • rnawky, on 07/07/2008, -4/+1What about http://fullsail.com/ the whole site is in flash. Looks pretty good too.
    • jezsik, on 07/07/2008, -0/+2Yes, very pretty; a bunch of people standing around and a little video window. If I wanted pretty, I could get pretty, but what I want is information and that site is slow at giving up the goods.
  • stevan2002, on 07/07/2008, -5/+3I disagree, flash is a great way to make your website unique and more marketable. There are some good points in your article and while I don't personally like to use flash, I understand that it is very powerful and can achieve things that a otherwise could not be done.

    Non developers don't care how you do it, the just want it done, then they deal with the decisions afterwards.
  • 1legend, on 07/07/2008, -0/+4I personally think flash should be used strictly for presentational purposes (eg. showing off products/video games and the like) but not really meant for a site that boasts functionality.
  • cartman005, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1One of the worst offenders of overusing Flash has got to be mycokerewards.com. The site is painfully slow and it takes me way too much time to simply enter a few codes for points. As a result, I now use Pepsi's service instead.
  • ferreth, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1I installed a flash blocker a long while ago to curb the flash popup issues. As a result, I have to click on each and every flash applet to see what it is. You wouldn't believe the amount of flash crap out there now. I've unblocked very few flash sites - so I'm all for curbing the rampant use of flash as eye-candy phenom.
  • element1ne, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1The McDonald's flash ads here on digg suck ass!
  • TheMachine1, on 07/08/2008, -1/+2Another lame Adobe product.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe

    According to wikipedia dung is an integral part of adobe. It applies to the company to.
  • Dracker, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1Flash does not belong in advertisements.

    Before someone replies about adblock, yes, I do block ads. This does not change the fact that obtrusive flash-based ads are a much greater violation of browsing than simple text or images.
  • dvavasour, on 07/08/2008, -0/+4Flash absolutely belongs on the intro for websites - I instantly know to close the tab and surf elsewhere.
  • silver26, on 07/08/2008, -1/+1Flash has been used the wrong way for a long time... and a lot of people hate it. But, with Google finally figuring out how to crawl thru flash links, I can see it becoming a much better platform to use.
  • jrbeilke, on 07/08/2008, -0/+0Flash has been used and misused by many a designer/developer in the past. Flash overall is not a bad thing, it's great for delivering rich multimedia content (ala youtube, etc.), but it has been abused in the design of full flash sites.

    Wrote a post on my blog about "Why Flash Websites Are Bad", here:
    http://www.moongrabber.com/web-design/why-flash-ba ...
  • tvanwyk, on 07/08/2008, -0/+1There's only 6?
  • kirkward, on 08/06/2008, -0/+0The ONLY place I can think of where Flash would belong is in a canned presentation that is not taking up bandwidth. i.e. A desktop or projected type of thingy. Nothing internet, and nothing in lieu of a splash screen
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