To Flash, or not to Flash.....

reptonite

Lads (and Lasses)

I have been mulling over the following problem for the last three weeks and find myself going around in circles. I would appreciate a bit of discussion.

I have to deliver a kick-ar$e site for nothing. Not next to nothing, just plain nothing. Don't ask, please (needs must as the Mrs. drives ). Just fyi, it's a descriptive site only, no db, no commerce, just information. And because it's information-light, I thought you'd have to turn it into an 'experience', and that led me to flash.

I have spent the last 2-3 weeks knee-deep in Flash 8, and have the bare bones of a site. But as the learning curve has levelled off, I am starting to think that a hybrid site might be a better investment of my time.

The client has gone for a standard template. A banner across the top, menu down the left side, and page-specific content in the remaining real-estate, the first two of which could still be made in flash for sexiness, and embedded.

These are the points I am currently sitting on the fence on.

1. I love the effects flash is capable of, but they are offset by the fact that people (the majority of the time) need to download the new player.

2. I suppose the best practice would be to develop both kinds, and offer the html as an alternative, but my head is wrecked after the flash crash-course.

3. CSS can be a powerful tool, but just like HTML in the old days, you are limited to a subset of tags that are ‘guaranteed’ to be recognised by a browser not supplied by the Gatser.

So it basically boils down to three choices. (a) Flash, (b) Hybrid, or (c) CSS.

I would appreciate anyone giving an opinion, as though I want shot of this particular situation, I don’t want to deliver something that looks like pants.

Cheers

aidan_walsh

I love the effects flash is capable of, but they are offset by the fact that people (the majority of the time) need to download the new player.

You also have people, such as myself, who prefer to have a HTML version so that I can get what I want now rather than having to wait for your animations and other useless jizzle to finish before I can read it.

I suppose the best practice would be to develop both kinds, and offer the html as an alternative, but my head is wrecked after the flash crash-course.

Alternative? No, put it in as an equal. If you're going to do both, make the initial screen give the user a choice on how they want to view the site.

CSS can be a powerful tool, but just like HTML in the old days, you are limited to a subset of tags that are ‘guaranteed’ to be recognised by a browser not supplied by the Gatser.

Um, what? Opera and Mozilla both have higher CSS standard compliance than IE 6 and below (IE 7 is making good in-roads). Thats assuming I understand what you mean by "the Gatser"...

Serbian

The main downsides to using Flash are generally it can't be indexed by search engines, you can't bookmark pages within a Flash movie and it breaks the back button.

You have to ask yourself, "What do I gain from adding Flash to my site?". The answer is nearly always nothing. Unless you are doing something like audio or video streaming there is really no reason to use Flash. Websites can look sexy without it.

rsynnott

I don't use flash websites. Ever. In general, the information hidden among the animations on a flash website is of no importance; if it was it would be on a proper website.

Seth Brundle

Serbian wrote:

The main downsides to using Flash are generally it can't be indexed by search engines <snip>

http://www.google.ie/search?q=google+flash&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

impr0v

kbannon wrote:

http://www.google.ie/search?q=google+flash&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

off topic, but from those results: http://www.flashearth.com/

Z

css/php

grahamor

rsynnott wrote:

I don't use flash websites. Ever. In general, the information hidden among the animations on a flash website is of no importance; if it was it would be on a proper website.

Thats a bad attitude in my opinion (just my opinion). There are many proper websites with lots of information made in flash. Most of them have html alternatives in case the viewer doesnt have the required flash player which is a good thing.

zag

Flash can be a pain in the arse alright. I only use it for banners, fade-ins, headers, and slideshows. Dreamweaver for the rest!

louie

NO, NO , NO to flash.

rsynnott

grahamor wrote:

Thats a bad attitude in my opinion (just my opinion). There are many proper websites with lots of information made in flash. Most of them have html alternatives in case the viewer doesnt have the required flash player which is a good thing.

Examples?

reptonite

Lads, you have to understand I was genuinely undecided either way, and reading this has made my mind up. Hybrid it is.

You must understand that the situation is unique, and that the client doesn't want too much information given, therefore hasn't supplied much, they just want it to look good so this is why I was hacking away in flash.

But, I am wary of going too far down the CSS route. Is there a way of finding which tags are non-IE6 compatible (quickly like).

Yet again, this place proves itself invaluable.......

grahamor

rsynnott wrote:

Examples?

these are 2 post production houses in London.

www.the-mill.com

www.moving-picture.com

both sites are php and mysql powered and very informative in my opinion.

Lets not get into a battle rsynnott but dont ditch flash sites just because you dont like them.

rsynnott

Erm, the first one is irritating, the second... looks like a HTML page, but less functional. Nah, not convinced.

By 'ditch' I'm guessing you mean 'diss'; I am down on flash sites because I find them irritating and everyone I know finds them irritating. They violate the principle of least surprise, they're slow to load, and they confuse inexperienced users. And they provide no clear benefit.

Flash has its uses, certainly; those uses don't involve whole websites.

zag

rsynnott wrote:

Erm, the first one is irritating, the second... looks like a HTML page, but less functional. Nah, not convinced.

Each to their own, but I think the first site has nice features. The typograpy is simple, and the sliding menu anim is good.

The second one is innovative, and refreshing, and easy to navigate.

Why, if we have this excellent technology at our disposal, should we NOT use it?

Websites are about content AND visuals.

But, in the case of the website in question, it sounds more like 70% visual, 30% content.

Flash + HTML 50% 50% Hybrid sounds like a plan.

tomED

Personally I would suggest sterring well clear of flash for the complete site.

By that I mean, all content, navigation etc should be outside the flash areas of your site. Small elements of flash can really bring life to a website.

However, Flash is not good if you want to be found on search engines.
Yes kbannon is right with those links, Google has been indexing content in flash for over a year now and links in flash for much longer. But that's not the point.

It's simply not a good way of getting your website to the top of the search engines for related phrases. And at the end of the day - is that not what you want your website to do?

Serbian

tomED wrote:

Yes kbannon is right with those links, Google has been indexing content in flash for over a year now and links in flash for much longer.

Sure, Google can read .swf files, but it never indexes more than the front page on any Flash only site I have seen, so I would argue that it certainly doesn't index Flash properly:

Google index of tbgd.co.uk
Google index of asylumnyc.com
Google index of bio-bak.nl

tomED

Serbian wrote:

Sure, Google can read .swf files, but it never indexes more than the front page on any Flash only site I have seen, so I would argue that it certainly doesn't index Flash properly:

Google index of tbgd.co.uk
Google index of asylumnyc.com
Google index of bio-bak.nl

Google definitely indexs flash properly. And one of your examples prove it.

E.g. asylumnyc.com - The flash "enter site"`is the only link to the page http://www.asylumnyc.com/creative_asylum/index.html on that website.

Google found the link in this flash file and followed it. When it got to the next page - there is nothing there to index.

Google will follow all the links to other pages on a website (that are in the flash file).

With many flash sites, the whole website is in one flash file on one page.
So when you follow a link in the flash file, it's a link within the flash movie and not a link to another html /php/asp etc. file. So google counts the whole website as 1 page. This is a good example of why flash is useless for being found on search engines.

Serbian

tomED wrote:

So google counts the whole website as 1 page. This is a good example of why flash is useless for being found on search engines.

This is basically what I was getting at. I agree it can read the Flash file, but it misses all the content past the first frame in the index page; this is what I mean by not indexing the Flash properly.

tomED

Serbian wrote:

This is basically what I was getting at. I agree it can read the Flash file, but it misses all the content past the first frame in the index page; this is what I mean by not indexing the Flash properly.

Again, not entirely true.

It doesn't miss the content in the flash movie, it will index it's contents alright - if standard linking techiques are used within the flash movie.

E.g.
http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-05,GGLJ:en&q=%22design%22+site%3awww%2edanser%2ecom%2fservices%2eswf

Serbian

Fair enough, I'm still not really convinced as Google could find content within a Flash movie but it cannot link directly to it (for example it could show content from inside the Web Integration part of the menu, but when you click on it, you just get the menu and no indication of where the text came from). It's better than no indexing at all though as was previously the case.

tomED

Serbian wrote:

Fair enough, I'm still not really convinced as Google could find content within a Flash movie but it cannot link directly to it (for example it could show content from inside the Web Integration part of the menu, but when you click on it, you just get the menu and no indication of where the text came from). It's better than no indexing at all though as was previously the case.

Again, in fainess, do all sites you visit when searching for phrase on Google link exactly to the part you want? I think not.

bpmurray

Another important issue is that Flash is not accessible. If your site could be directed at the US market, that would leave it open to litigation.

aidan_walsh

tomED wrote:

Again, in fainess, do all sites you visit when searching for phrase on Google link exactly to the part you want? I think not.

If they have a comprehensive index of the site, and it isn't a spam site then in my experience if I have enter the proper keywords then yes, it does the majority of the time.

tomED

aidan_walsh wrote:

If they have a comprehensive index of the site, and it isn't a spam site then in my experience if I have enter the proper keywords then yes, it does the majority of the time.

I don't really understand your response tbh.

Obviously, if it isn't a spam site and it has a comphrensive index of the site, well then it's exactly what you are looking for, are you telling me that the top 30 will always have everything you are looking for, for a generic search (we're not talking about specifc search terms here)

Anyway, I asked asked the question "do all sites you visit when searching for phrase on Google?"

"ALL" being the operative word.

I can't help but feel your response is a contradiction or am I missing the point??

tomED

bpmurray wrote:

Another important issue is that Flash is not accessible. If your site could be directed at the US market, that would leave it open to litigation.

It depends on what you call accessible. If you are referring to WAI's WCAG 1.0 - well then yes, it's not entirely accessible (priority level 1, possibly 2).

If you are in the US, the government uses Section 508 mainly, it's possible to make an accessible flash movie adhering to these guidelines.

WCAG 2.0 which will hopefully be launched soon, will be in ways similar to Section 508, which will mean it will beeven easier to make an accessible flash site!!

By the way guys, it's coming across as if I am a fan of Flash. Every client that I meet I tell them to steer well clear of flash!! So just in case you think I'm an undercover employee of macromedia (or should I say adobe??) - I'm definitely not!

Flash has its uses - but it's not something I recommend in most if not all cases.