Before I start, I am going to clearly state that in certain circumstances Flash sites can be great, they are often visually amazing and an ease to navigate.
One major problem with Flash is what do you do when Flash is not installed? You may scoff and say well everyone eventually will have it because when they come across a site that needs Flash they will install it. Unfortunately I am one of those people that will not install, why should I waste my time? JUST SHOW ME THE SITE.
This is where my frustrations began:
Over the weekend I was browsing the search engines trying to find Wine farms in the Cape to visit. Via Google I was taken to www.spier.co.za and was presented with the following:
I decided I was going to break the deadlock and install the thing how hard could it be? Well lets put it this way my computer is still Flashless. I expected it to be easy, just a push of the click here button a little wait , then the site would appear. Unfortunately you are taken to the Adobe Webpage and from here on I was lost. I consider myself to be quite computer literate, so what on earth will the average web user do?
I also came across another site www.riverisland.com. on my web travels this week, with the same problem.
If a non-flash visitor enters one of these sites from a Google search, they are going to click straight back to Google and click on the next Website i.e. your competitor ,who will provide them with what they need. I would love to know the stats on the bounce rates, maybe they can prove me wrong.
I am sure the actual number of web users with Flash is quite high, so I suppose these sites are willing to loose a small percentage of visitors.
Whilst Im on my little rant I have 2 more reasons why I personally do not like Flash sites.
1. When Im in South Africa they can take an eternity to load, as I watch the loader slowly move across the page, I sit anxiously aware that at the same time my bandwidth for the month is slowly being gobbled up.
2. How many people actually wait for an introduction page to load? I know I go straight to the skip intro button. I always feel my time is being wasted, this also goes for splash pages. I read a great analogy comparing these pages to the 45 minutes of commercials before a cinema movie (and we all now how annoying these are). It is thought that a user should be able to convert in no more than 5 clicks through your site – therefore with intro pages and splash pages you have already wasted one of these clicks.
At World Wide Creative we provide profitable websites, and we often do not recommend Flash for web marketing reasons. This blog post is well worth the read if you are unconvinced
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of-flash.html
This is actually written by Google itself recommending that Flash may not be the best route.
- Nicola
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Hi Nicola
Mike wrote a post recently on which I commented about ’shortening the decision cycle’ for your prospect/customer.
Think your frustration says it all: don’t offer only flash (for those who do have fast connection and flash), offer non-flash too on the same website.
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
Good post Nic. Food for thought. The temptation from a design point of view is substantial because of the limitations of HTML. It’s kind of like having to design a presentation with a stencil when you have a full suite of paintbrushes nearby and a fresh canvas. Flash provides you with so many options that it’s heartbreaking sometimes to have to veto it in the planning process.
I have to say, I expected more from a progresive web company than the old boring debate of weather to use flash or not. If companies like Microsoft and Apple are using flash sites to create dynamic content I think its time to get with the program gents. Stats show that 98% of browsers have flash installed. So lets look at our options then: Design a boring static site so that an extra 2% of browsers can view it. Or create it with dynamic and interactive content which creates an experience and lasting impact.
…Hmmm. I guess if you want to be be bitter and twisted and stay on your high horse of no-flash im sure you can find some old age homes that need websites done.
Its 2007, embrace technology!!!
Thanks for you candid comments Brad.
By no means did Nicola say no flash. Their is certainly a time and a place for it and you are quite right that the choice of a flash website shouldn’t come down to the fact that 2% of users don’t have it. In fact I think she said that herself.
I believe one should look at the choice of website for a company not in terms of embracing technology and therefore building a flash site but by evaluating the particular need for that client. What are their marketing objectives? What are they trying to convay with their brand? What is the action they want the visitor to take after visiting the site? How do they want each different personas site to interact it? And another factor is obviously budget and what can be achieved for the money.
If certain web marketing is required non-flash sites can offer you greater options (but again only if that is the site objective).
In fact we have built flash sites for clients in the past, present and will continue to do so in the future. When it ties in with their budget and marketing objectives.
To put Nicolas comments in context: She is one of the 2% that doesn’t have flash on her computer and I don’t believe any average user would find the process of adding it via the Adobe website easy.
She is also based in South Africa where one has to consider upload times (although flash programmers are getting much better at alieviating this problem).
Thanx for your comments… Perky?(spokesperson for Nicola).
I agree, use the right tool for the job.
I can understand the slight inconvenience of installing flash for a computer illiterate person. But then I dont see why you have mentioned these two websites as examples. Surely these 2 websites are not to blame, but rather the Adobe site?
“computer illiterate” – have you been on the adobe site and tried to install the latest flash version recently? There are a few lessons in usability that adobe certainly need to learn.
Easy boys. I think this debate is by no means over. Dynamic content and layouts are the way forward, we all know that. We’ve integrated Flash in many websites before, but the truth is that we have to consider our options carefully as a website company. We aim to create ‘profitable websites’ which means looking carefully at our target market. To be frank, downloading Flash is the least of our problems – we know that many people just plain don’t like animated bells and whistles. Download time becomes a problem, etc. We live in Africa, let’s face it, and we have particular challenges that come with that.