I am constantly amazed at other web design companies websites that are built either entirely or mainly using Flash. Yes, it is a ‘flash’ way of showing off your design and animation skills but this technology does not address many of the issues surrounding effective website design.
Firstly, it takes ages to load. Even if you have a fast broadband connection the load time is still several seconds whereas a well designed and lean non-flash website will load instantaneously or within a couple of seconds. This is a crucial period of time where the user wants to make an initial assessment as to whether this website is relevant to them. Instead of the user seeing the company logo, overall design and the initial sales pitch of the website within the first second or two they are confronted with a % loaded graphic that is more at home on a movie than a site selling web development services to an insurance broker.
Then, when the flash site loads there are often more bells and whistles with over-animation of key elements such as the navigation. It glides into place like a formula one car jockeying for position on the starting grid. Again another second or even more wasted. And every second counts with websites (unless you happen to be Ebay who can keep you waiting for several seconds due to huge page complexity because they have a domination on the marketplace for their product). Reduced to it’s bare essentials, the navigation menu is simply a set of links that take the user to the page or section of the site they are looking for. Sure, there are many tactics we can use as designers to make the links more clickable such as underlining and change of colour but does the user really get more out of their experience with over elaborate animations when they go to click on a link to the about us page? This is more about designers showing off their skill set rather than striking a balance between usability and design.
I’m not arguing against flash as a web design technology. It is highly effective but not as a solution for a complete website build except in certain industries where the medium is fundamentally animation i.e. movie-making. However, flash is very effective when used in snippets of a website. An example of this is at the Virgin Money website where the central advert employs a subtle use of flash with the rest of the website loading quickly because it uses static content and images.
Flash can also be the antidote to positive search engine rankings if it is used to build an entire website since the likes of Google cannot read the contents of a flash movie. You’d be better off uploading a PDF to your website because at least the contents can be read by search engines.
So lets use Flash where it is necessary to add visual interest and flair where ordinary images don’t work or would be too slow to load. But avoid using Flash as the basis of a website purely to show off our design skils and therefore sacrificing a fast, straightforward and usable website. Ultimately, your website will make you more money if it is designed with fast-load times and instant access to the information users need to make a decision about whether to do business with you.
