deliciously simple web design & creatively technical writing

• Home
• About
• Gallery
• Archive

Why I don’t make Flash websites

It still feels weird to say Adobe Flash and not Macromedia Flash, doesn’t it?

I’m a big fan of Adobe Flash. Vector graphics are so frakking cool. I just dislike seeing most types of websites made entirely with it.

There’s nothing preventing the creation of a great Flash website. In my view, there’s really just no point to using Flash in most types of traditional business sites or blogs because the nifty motion effects and interfaces that only Flash makes possible are usually detrimental to usability. And if you’re not going to be using those aspects of Flash in your site, is there really a point to using Flash?

There are many examples of Flash sites that are obviously created by talented individuals throughout the internet, but there are also many that are nigh impossible to actually use.

Don’t get me wrong, these types of experimental interfaces are cool, but are hard to actually use.

When the current navigation of a site is so broken that you feel the need to add a “Feeling Lost?” menu to your site, it really ought to be a wakeup call that you could be doing something even better.

Why clients request Flash sites

Sometimes when I’ve went and talked with prospective clients about websites, they’re dead set on a Flash site, with lots of motion and a unique interface and lots of prettiness/decoration.

Why do so many clients request this? I think there are two main reasons.

i) A lot of it is probably has to do with a high familiarity with the technology. Flash is ubiquitous. It is something that is very noticeable and it is something most people who spend time on the internet have heard of. And it can certainly be memorable.

ii) The other part of it is not understanding why deviating from standard types of interfaces on the internet is bad.

Understanding the medium

I’ve made this point in a previous article, and I’ll continue repeating it.

It is important to understand that creating a website is very different from designing something like a magazine cover. When designing a magazine cover, your first priority is to make it attention getting, because a magazine is usually on a shelf next to dozens of other magazines competing for a consumer’s time and money.

If you’re trying to decide which item to get here, you’re probably going to go after the one that catches your attention somehow: whether through an interesting picture or clever headline. Photo from FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

The internet is different, users click on words in text links to arrive at your website and make an extremely quick mental decision as to how useful your site will be for them.

Motion and interface complexity is bad.

Pay attention to how you navigate websites. You’ll find that you subconsiously block out a lot of the motion on screen and you try and focus on content. The reason for that is you’ve gotten used to ignoring ads on the internet, and many of the most annoying advertisements feature goofy little moving ducks and text and video.

So using Flash to put important interface elements in motion can make users actually subconsciously ignore it, till they get frustrated and go away. And as I’ve previously mentioned, since you only have an extremely short amount of time to capture a user’s attention, you’re throwing away potential users when doing fancy experiments with Flash in most cases.

Usability problems inherrent in Flash

Note that these problems can also exist in regular xhtml/css websites that use Ajax techniques, which is a reason why it should be used with caution, and obviously with some kind of feedback to let the user know that some data on the server has been changed.

There are several usability problems that Flash presents. Here are just a few of the more odious ones.

Right clicking doesn’t work as expected - Modern web browsers have tabs and other methods of managing even dozens of individual pages in one window. There’s no excuse for preventing somebody from opening several pages on your site at once by using some goofy Flash links. Right-clicking to open a link and getting this type of screen…

…can be annoying.

Loading screens - Even in an age where broadband internet access is pretty common, it can be annoying for a user to encounter the typical “loading” screen that many flash sites use. So long as you avoid the use of large graphics and other things, your regular xhtml/css sites can usually be very snappy.

Links and the back button are often broken - As with html frames, putting valuable content within a Flash site can make it difficult for users to recommend specific bits of content directly to their friends because the link only leads to the main page. And depending on how you arrange things, a Flash site can break the user’s expected behavior by making the browser’s “back button” completely ineffective. The isn’t a problem for things like games or videos, but it can be a problem in most types of sites where you’re trying to sell a product or spread a message. While this isn’t a problem for games or cartoons, this can affect navigating any type of serious site. You can obviously fix this problem, but it does take a bit more effort.

Accessibility - One big problem is that you can’t resize text size in Flash using normal browser tools. This can be a big problem towards certain segments of the population that have vision problems and who are used to resizing the text using standard browser tools.

There are other usability issues with Flash sites, but those are some of the biggest.

What Flash is great for

Flash is great for certain things. For most quick internet games, for cartoons, for unique viral advertising experiments, and for internet video I think that using Flash is great.

For regular business or personal use where you’re trying to sell a product or communicate a message, the disadvantages outweigh the good aspects in most cases.

One great advantage of Flash is that typefaces can be embedded in Flash files, which gives you a larger palette of fonts than you have in the xhtml/css world.

Convincing others to eschew Flash

Usually whenever somebody asks for a Flash site, the story ends with me showing them a quick demo of the cool effects made possible with Lightbox or something like that. I then explain the existence of various frameworks like Prototype and Script.aculo.us and mootools and with a little perceverance it can be possible to convince them that Flash isn’t necessary.

I enjoy doing my part and helping to educate people that there are usually alternatives.

Other possible items of interest

Flash: 99% Bad - An older article that explains why Flash websites encourage bad design practices.

Flash Usability Tips - A brief summary of some ideas for making Flash sites even more usable.

Best Practices for Accessible Flash Design (PDF) - A collection of ideas from Macromedia/Adobe about how to create buttons and use colors in Flash websites while keeping things accessible.

Flash Developer Center: Testing and usability - Adobe’s home on the web for their own Flash usability articles.

Conclusion

Flash is great in certain cases, but using it in general business sites or blogs kinda blows. Thats a quick summary of my beliefs and I’m sticking to that.

In other news, I’ve put off a few articles I’ve been writing on some basic web usability practices in place of some work and some other articles that I’ve been working on, but I hope to get back to that original series before the end of the summer sometime.

Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Chris Papadopoulos.

Subscribe to the RSS feed, Trackback, or contact me privately.

Comments

1. porcupine (1 comments.) @ Oct 16

   I agree with you.

   What bothers me most is not clients who ask for Flash because they don’t know the alternatives or about usability issues.

   The real problem are developers who confuse web design with art. They believe that by developing only in Flash promotes the web. Which is not true of course.

2. Chris Papadopoulos @ Oct 16

   * Yeah, its not really a client’s fault if they aren’t aware of the alternatives.

   * I’m a fan of really simple and usable websites, so I agree with what you said there too.

   PS: Really cool website you have there Yiannis. I wish I was able to visit Greece sometime. Maybe next summer.

Agree or Disagree?

Your Name (required)


Your E-mail (required)


Your Website (optional)


Your Comment

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail