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Flash in the
Pan
Teacher: Michael
Bloch
The exciting world of Flash animation
and graphics. I've seen some pretty impressive Flash work out
there, designs that really take your breath away. If you're
looking to make a good first impression from a graphical point
of view, Flash is definitely the way to go.
But.....
There are also many more very
bad Flash presentations - including my own first attempt nearly
2 years ago, which thankfully I had the good sense to remove
from Taming the Beast.net very quickly - I was awarded the "Services
to the Internet Community" award for that decision!
Just because something spins,
whirrs and glows when you move a mouse over it, it doesn't
necessarily make it a good thing and I doubt very much whether
it will increase online sales. Flash should be treated with
care and respect. The bottom line is, who is your audience?
Research your online audience
before Flashing at them..
If you run a games or otherwise
very youth oriented site, Flash is probably well suited to
this demographic - if you are selling life insurance to mature
age people, I can't see the point of it.
Aside from graphic design issues
it boils down to bandwidth and load times. A well thought out
and presented Flash animation will be impressive to a visitor
a couple of times and then become a monumental pain in the
ass afterwards while waiting for it to load. Those "skip intro" links
are a great idea, but still an extra click is required and
they have a habit of not forwarding you past the Flash element
until certain processes have completed.
You could always offer a Flash
and non-Flash version of your site, but really, what is the
point unless you already have a Flashed site and you have discovered
that the technology is actually doing you damage? Increased
development and administration time are two powerful factors
against planning to build two versions of a new site - again,
this wouldn't apply to all industries. If you're a web designer,
then having two versions of your site may actually increase
your clientele through the demonstration of versatility.
As I mentioned in a previous
article, we don't all have broadband connections. I am fortunate
enough to have a broadband connection and even with the greatly
increased speed, I still find Flash splash pages to be highly
annoying after the initial ooohs and aaahs of the first visit.
You become accustomed to fast page downloads very rapidly when
you have a broadband connection, so an extra 5 second wait
becomes as equally frustrating as an extra 25 second wait under
a dial-up connection - it's the nature of the beast....
Flash and Search Engines..
Another important factor is the
effect that Flash elements have on search engines - up until
very recently, search engine spiders have not been able to "read" Flash
based web site components.
There's some good news on this
front. FAST (alltheweb.com) recently announced that they are
able to spider the textual elements of Flash presentations.
This is great news for Flash developers! Google also provides
some Flash spidering capabilities (since October 2001), but
this has been limited to following links embedded in presentations.
Bear in mind that FAST only have
a very small share of the search engine market, although they
do seem set to become a major player in the future. For the
time being, if the majority of your web site content exists
within Flash elements then you can probably kiss traffic from
this very important source good-bye for at least the next year.
Never underestimate the value
of search engines as a source of visitors to your web site
- without the search engines, Taming the Beast.net would lose
over 100 000 visits a month.
As with other graphic elements
on your site, if overdone, Flash can totally detract from other
site offerings. Flash in the hands of a master can be truly
stunning, but using it in an amateurish fashion or as a gimmick
could really work against you - the balance between artistic
impact and effective online marketing is truly difficult to
achieve. My suggestion - leave it to the real experts. The
time spent on trying to get a button to spin could be better
spent on the real meat and potatoes of the web - useful commercial
and non-commercial information.
About the teacher:
Michael Bloch
Taming the Beast.net
http://www.tamingthebeast.net
Tutorials, web content, tools and software
Web Marketing, eCommerce & Internet solutions.
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