I've been noticing that there's a gap between web programmers and web designers. Naturally, web designers are more biased towards full flash sites, since it allows them a very good venue to vent their creativity and art, but for web programmers, they tend to shy away from flash due to its incompatibility with accessibility and usability requirements proposed by the W3C.

Anybody wanna discuss the usability issues regarding the use of flash on the internet? How many people are still in 56K era? How many more yet to install a flash plugin for their browsers? What are the concerns or limitations to proper usage of flash on a webpage? What kind of contents would it work best, and in what kind of context should the usage of flash be avoided totally?

Come, share your thoughts.

Currently, web designer is not only constraint their work within interface design & animation. They need to learn basic Html & Css, If they could.

The advance programming part such as database portion will let the web developer confront em.

as for a website, I think A website which contains Information will possibly save down for reference by Viewer.. best to stay in static page , Html.

Flash is better use for Intro page or products banner. Buttons oso can, but it might occur Button_Root difficulty to interact wif the Html Pages. dat's y ppl rather make the whole site include text content into Flash.

Yeah, recently i jst meet a client said He want his site to suit 56kbps modem. It is better an Information site for Business environment to design in HTML page.

Which content are suitable for FULL FLash display?
- Entertainment(Movies, Games page),
- artwork/ portfolio, company site(Without heavy mass products info).

WebSite u won't think to save down a thing.

This post has been edited by dinodog_Jr: Oct 25 2005, 11:38 AM

The core of the problem to me is that most designers don't utilize Flash in the appropriate areas. Flash isn't just about presentation nowadays, it's about interactivity. Even the slightest interactivity proves its life in a website. However, this doesn't count if it's the Replay button.

That said, clients too have a problem of demanding Flash in the wrong places. Most of the time they'll go like, "oh, I kinda like what this site has..the motion thing before entering the website.." In my mind, "why do you need an intro if your company is about e-commerce or a product..?" Might as well put an tv-ad type there instead of an intro.

But some clients insist on having those movies in there even after they hire us for professional advice, so afaik, i'll still do it because they're willing to pay for it.

Allow me to steer the discussion into one area:

INTRO PAGES.

Yes, in the internet you see a lot of websites with flash intros. Anybody wants to give some thought about the practicality of these intros? For websites other than artwork sites, like communities, info portals, information zones, news websites, are these intro pages necessary? Or rather, in which context will these intro pages be useful?

In my opinion, the internet can be used for a few things:
- marketing
- information zone
- community
- commerce/service

Flash intros are only appropriate for marketing purposes only, like the websites for various upcoming movies, games, and stuff like that. The reasoning is that these visitors will only come to the website for a limited period of time, most probably max 2-3 visits, before the website becomes obselete. Maximum impact has to be imposed upon the visitor within that very limited window, and therefore flash is welcomed, even encouraged. For the other 3 usages, they are unnecessary.

What say you?

I agree with you there that intro pages should be used only for a length of time. That said, I think if anyone wants to have a Flash intro can do so but maybe let it be there for only a month. After that, move up the actual website homepage to the front and have a View Intro button or link somewhere.

dat;s y i will put a SKIP btn at Intro page for my work.. It is an option to let viewer decide to watch the show or jump off dat screen.

Who da hell will really spent their time to see Intro page sometimes..

u can put Intro page at the Top...Bottom still showing faster loading for content.
Separate em ..while viewers can read & "waiting for preloading".


Haha.. We should talk bout How to OPTIMIZE Flash Filesize to make Popularity flash in the web designing. This is the Roots why ppl complaint FLash is "sluggish rubbish".

Reason is creator dunno how to maintain good filesize from a Simple-looking design.

Skip button always helps. And if you put a script to track that particular button clicks, you will see how frequent people click on that.

THat's the problem with flash, it breaks the 'back' and 'refresh' buttons of the browser. A great website will make people keep coming back for more. And people doesnt like to rewatch all your flash geng-ness, objects flying up and down and the 10-seconds preloader everytime they come back.

And people always seem to forget(or dont know how to) to include alternate content in case users have different version or no flash player at all. Accessibility is not disability, its to make sure equal exposure to the mass.

I have to give great credit to Macromedia though, the latest flash editor and player has new rendering machine and supports accessiblity and usability much much more than their previous version. Content are now search engine friendly if you know how to do it and the swf. compression are, if i am not mistaken, 1200% more than the previous version - thus greatly increase accessibility to dial up users and alike.

Oh and IMHO, its totally inaccurate to say that generally web designers prefer flash. I know a lot who dont. Flash is at best, when used subtly.

But then, i might have not been on the same side on flash design compare to css and xhtml design, i am totally full of excitement about flash side scripting. People think of flash as something cool and animated, but behind that flash is very powerful to provide the same kind of backend support and interaction that AJAX and SOAP provide. Trust me, the latest version (rendering and actionscript 3.0) is so powerful, you will see a lot of flash web application pooping out very soon.

Even i use Goowy(http://webserver001.goowy.com/) extensively everyday to manage my task.

waoh..i haven't check out the lastest Flash program.

Sounds like very Big improvement..

But i am not into AS... Will it improve anything else from a Designer view?
U mean the Compression tech had been improve?

It means smaller filesize could be happen by using Old fla from Flash Mx2004?

Nope. It will only work from the newest editor. I doubt it will have any significant effect if you are just into the design part, but since the AS is now strong typing (instead of loose typing), it greatly reduce the code overhead, but it also means u need to get your syntax right.

But there're already number of ways to reduce current fla fiel, namely compress your images, delete uneccesary objects from library and use math to do some animation instead of the default animation features.

What do you guys think about the future prospect of flash? Will it replace HTML's presentation eventually?

Well, if you're using Flash 8.. there are the blends like Photoshop now. I haven't tried it personally yet.

It might replace HTML when there isn't preloading needed to be done. Meaning it's instant like HTML and not to mention, it needs a player that is compatible with all kinds of browsers to even maybe screen readers.

By then, I think we wouldn't hava HTML anymore.

heyloo , i think its a manner of content , yeah but not to forget flash is a way better medium to present ,with advance actionscript ,flash can intergrate with most of web programming script such as asp ,java etc
check macromedia.com it a perfect example of intergrating both html and flash ,cheers!

"better medium to present........"

how so?

well , u can intergrate all the presentation element like graphiks ,text audio ,video in just one file and publish into 3wc or even in mobile with
flash plugin for handphones.

well , u can intergrate all the presentation element like graphiks ,text audio ,video in just one file and publish into 3wc or even in mobile with
flash plugin for handphones.

but that's the thing really.. if not everyone has the plugin or if Macromedia doesn't cut a deal with Apple or MS to bundle the Flash player together, the reach of Flash entirely still isn't there yet.

not to mention about what I said earlier for screen readers and such..

i had finished the Flash studio 8 demonstration flash show.

They are new features for gfx effects & curve editor. Can save alot of filesize to import picture format into Flash, rite?

The Video thing is the most Big improvement.

Hee.. this program still very New. Most of the local company won't using it yet. For own sake, stick wif MX2004. Just using for personal usage and see how it goes.

im still sticking to flash mx, yeah, guided AS mode helps

Macromedia always make sure early adopters get the reward to push through their product. But i handsomely do so this time(by recreating all my swf file in the new flash and optimize the AS). There's no problem with 'many local company' still not using it yet. Ever since flash 7 player, Macromedia has included an automatic function that will prompt you to update your player once it is outdated. The latest player is 8.5 i believe and yeah, u need latest player to play newly created movie with the enw flash editor.

so i dont see any reason why it cant be widely adopted now.

hmmm...i am worry as a designer responsibilities not a Viewer part...

It is fussy to transfer all works to a new platform. Dat's y i wonder Local companies will so fast catching this new flash program on hand.

But it worth a Brand new change..

ANyone here into FLash Lite? I feel Great future potential in this FLash lite. Since Mobile entertainment is the Current Trend.

I'm worried of backwards compatibility with files especially..

One thing with flash is that firstly, it is not a standard endorsed by w3c. Heck in that sense, even AJAX would be better. This means that not every browser comes with the latest and greatest flash plugin, and you will periodically need to update it. As etsuko said, backward compatibility would be a nightmare to non-tech savvy users. Secondly, with each new iteration of flash there's bound to be new features added in, and these features does not have a roadmap. This means that the general public doesn't know what to expect from the newest flash version.

Will these two attributes hurt flash? With the wide variety of browsers, platforms and machines that we have today, what do you think?

To the general public or the average visitor, they don't really care about what's bundled in the new Flash. To them, it's just about being able to enjoy the experience or have a friendly experience with your website.

That said, I think that Macromedia might need a new take on promoting Flash to the world instead of just being video importable, look nice and flexble, supports backend integration and techy stuff.

What Macromedia maybe needs is to educate the public on why Flash is the future..