New Website - animated flash or not?

Crumble

Hi guys,

I intend to get a website for a new business venture and before I start shopping around I thought I would seek advise on whether to go down the route of an animated flash site or stick with a faster loading non animated site.

The business venture is high tech in nature and so I would like something slick but then again I don't want a site that requires a long wait for the opening page to load.

What do you guys prefer... bells and whistles and a bit of a wait or quick and simple?

appreciate your opinions on this one.

Gordon

As a web user I hate waiting. I don't want to see flashy animated "wow" type visuals unless I am looking for a flashy wow animator for a project. I especially don't want audio! Something that looks professional gives me the impression that you are professional, and something that gives me quick access to your information will make me enjoy the site more.

On your end of things, if you have a flash website Google won't index the content. If you are running a business and want people to find you by web searches then you aren't going to get the hits you are expecting if you go down the flash route.

Crumble

Thanks for that Gordon... exactly the info I was looking for.. was not aware of the indexing issues with flash either.

Sound like I will be staying clear of flash then.

Cheers..

Bob the Builder

If I was you, and if I chose to do flash; I would only make a small bit of an animation here and there. That would mean a small bit in the footer, the logo/header, and maybe a few others bits, but I would always make the main content in non flash, for the simple reason of accessibility. Visually deprived people find animated text hard to see, or to make larger.

http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr
sifr is an option which adds flexibility into a flash website, have a look into it. Bare that in mind in your decision for a flash or nonflash website.

also, flash animated websites are sometimes are hard to update. bare this is mind, and talk to your flash designer about it.

I personally, know very little detail about flash, so my information will be sketchy.

JohnK

Like the others said nothing turns me off a site quicker than it being totally flash based - cant bloody stand those sites and usually would only ever use them if absolutely no other alternative and even then I'd only use it reluctantly. Now this is just my opinion but generally speaking whenever I see a flash site its usually all style no substance so its all pretty graphics but little in the way of useful content/information.

Also, I hate having to wait between pages just because someone wants to force me to sit through a fancy animation.

Crumble

nevf wrote: »

also, flash animated websites are sometimes are hard to update. bare this is mind, and talk to your flash designer about it.

This is going to be important as I would hope to be able to update the site myself rather than have to pay somebody to do it for me as funds will be tight at the business start-up stage.

I think the general consensus is to stay away from to much flash anyway!

Will have a look at that URL too, thanks.:)

Gordon

That's a good point about updating. I had to update a companys website that was completely done in flash and for some files I had to downgrade my flash app. Not only that but I had to trawl the net to find a copy of the font used throughout the site. I couldn't find the Greek version of the font so I was extremely lucky that I was learning how to create fonts, I ended up mapping a completely new font for that purpose. (stressful time..)

It is possible to get the programmer to counteract these problems - such as putting the font in a shared library to be referenced when needed; and using dynamic information for content as opposed to loading all images (for example) into the flash app and exporting the .swf file into one big self contained movie.

If you really want to be able to update it yourself it is possible but the programmer will have to take this into account and may charge more for doing so. In my experience a flasher will tend to use self contained movies as opposed to loading external data.

ntlbell

poke your eyes out with forks before you use flash.

If you keep this in mind at all times you should never go wrong.