raddesignz

I’m a big fan of Flash and it has many uses. One of them though, is NOT to create an entire website with it. I believe it is my job as a knowledgeable website designer to explain to the full story behind using Flash for an entire website.

Here’s a quick summary from Wikipedia on the problems with Flash:

“Criticism of Adobe Flash have included questions of its usability, the problems Flash-laden pages cause for those with disabilities, security issues, limited platform compatibility, performance and compatibility issues on certain platforms, the inability for search engines to index data contained in Flash binary data, its use as a means to restrict access to content and the implementation of DRM.”

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash

Now for some of you that looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo but the basic idea behind that paragraph is that Flash was originally created as a multimedia component to be used on the web for videos, applications & other rich content. By the way, did I mention that Flash doesn’t work on many mobile devices (PDAs, itouch/iphone, etc.), blocking potential customers from your accessing your business and your site.

Here are my top five reasons for NOT creating a Flash only website:

1. They don’t get indexed well by search engines. What good is a nice looking website if your customers can’t find you? Yes. Google and other search engines can read the text you put in your flash, but the amount of content that is taken into consideration when ranking your site, against say, a competitors NON-Flash website is no where near what you can markup in HTML and text.
2. The all mighty Apple’s iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices do not display flash. So if your website is built entirely in flash, guess what. You’re missing out on potential business if customers are out and about and need to find directions to your business.
3. You can’t give direct links to specific pages within your website. Even if Google indexes a whole bunch of keywords it’s not much good if it just takes you to the front “page” of  your full flash website and not the actual page with the content.
4. If a visitor to your website doesn’t have flash viewer installed on their computer, they can’t view your website.
5. Harder to find Flash developers/designers than it is HTML/CSS nerds.

Learn from the past …

Back in the late 1990’s, Flash only websites became a big thing for a while.  When Flash first came out everybody jumped on the bandwagon and decided to (over) use it.  Similar to how frames and blinking text could be found on every site built in the mid 1990’s, Flash was huge soon thereafter. Then people realized that it was a bad idea, as people realized incompatability issues – your users had to download a Flash Player to display Flash on your site – and that the loading…loading…loading animation was a big no-no. Making your customers wait to access your information? Let’s get real, there are hundreds, no..THOUSANDS of businesses your customers can go to instead. Oh, and don’t give your customers an option to hear your music, just let it autoplay and give them a near heart attack when the site loads and the music kicks on. Way to attract those customers!

If you wanted to “go big” visually with a website, delivering complex interaction and a rich experience across a wide range of browsers, Flash is the only way to go. Right? Nope. Given the widespread adoption and advancements of modern browsers and JavaScript libraries, using Flash makes little sense today. The modern, user-friendly Web has  returned to traditional HTML and CSS based web sites. Let’s not make the same mistake.

Attack of the almighty APPLE

Another fact that should make you reconsider Flash only sites, is that Apple is now in open warfare against Flash, where they will not let Flash work on the very popular iPhone and iPad. That means that a Flash only website cannot be seen by millions of users.

Flash should only be used for:

1. Application development.
2. Only in parts of your HTML web sites – to do things like play video, audio or some other multimedia use.

So, what does all of this mean? Flash should not be used to build an entire website, that is what HTML and CSS were designed for, and that is what search engines and users are expecting. This may anger some Flash maniacs, but what can I say, sometimes the truth hurts.