To Flash or Not To Flash

randombar

Hi Lads,

Just wondering what peoples opinions are on flash? I'm looking up a few templates on templatemonster (I know ye're not a fan it's just I'm not a graphic designer) and I've seen a couple of nice partly flash ones.
The thing I'm wondering is am I better off staying away for accessibility reasons or should I be ok?

Thanks
Gary

Goodshape

In my opinion, don't use flash for anything other than video / graphical presentation stuff.

In terms of accessibility and SEO - flash for navigation is very bad.

Onikage

I second the above. Tutorials, vector graphics, A/V players and games are fine.

Under no circumstance make the following with flash: page contents, menus, buttons, lists or forms. Just because it's possible, doesn't mean you should.

randombar

Cool, that's music to my ears, don't have to go away and learn another new one!

zardette

hi there,

I used flash templates and they can be quite complex so if your starting to learn flash then that might prove a lot of head scratching esp. since they have a time domain as well as a scripting part.

But they work very well if your website is appealing to visual audience. For example you might want to use it if you are developing a website for a photography company . however be careful that some ad-block block flash so you might alienate some of your market. When I design in flash I always support the option for non flash users…

You see some people like to read a website and some like to view it so you need to decide what your audience is .

It also can be quite tricky to communicate with a database if your site require a e-commerce site you might need to use flash remoting for quick access
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashremoting/productinfo/upgrade/

The best application I used it for was for developing an e-learning system
…… anything else just didn’t cut it!

Z

leninbenjamin

from a layman's point of view I personally hate flash templates. flash can be visually stunning and quite an enticing tool, but only when used in moderation and with a clear purpose in mind in my opinion. too often they just smack of over-elaboration, I get a "look what i can has!!!" kind of vibe from them all too often.

Laslo

Just as a footnote - if you don't know when Flash should and shouldn't be used then don't sell Web design services professionally.

randombar

HaHa define professionally

zardette

leninbenjamin wrote: »

from a layman's point of view I personally hate flash templates. flash can be visually stunning and quite an enticing tool, but only when used in moderation and with a clear purpose in mind in my opinion. too often they just smack of over-elaboration, I get a "look what i can has!!!" kind of vibe from them all too often.

well I think they can be stunning and if you need a wow factor then they can provide that ..... here an example ...

http://www.tigerwoods.com/defaultflash.sps


but does Tiger really need the wow factor

its really depends on your application ..

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/main.html

Laslo

GaryCocs wrote: »

HaHa define professionally

Charging other businesses for web design and/or development services in order to make profit.

Laslo

zardette wrote: »

well I think they can be stunning and if you need a wow factor then they can provide that ..... here an example ...

http://www.tigerwoods.com/defaultflash.sps

I think that's utter rubbish. If you're going to use Flash then at least some decent effects and some nice, natural motion and rich media is an order. That's just a (badly designed) HTML site done in Flash.

zardette wrote: »

but does Tiger really need the wow factor

No he does not. He rocks.

zardette wrote: »

its really depends on your application ..

I think a lot of the time the lines are blurred where the use of Flash is concerned.

If your primary goal is the delivery of information to as wide an audience as possible, then universality and accessibility become extremely important. A government or public service site, for example, would need to carefully consider the execution of Web standards and accessibility. That's not to say that they couldn't use some Flash in their sites - but it would need to degrade gracefully and any (important) information within the Flash movies would need to be fully accessible.

On the other hand, if you're building a Web application for a focused purpose or to allow your users to perform a very specific task, then accessibility might not be one of your primary (or even secondary) concerns. In an ideal world you would make your application as accessible as possible but let's just say you decided to build it completely in Flash and that doing this vastly increased the user experience. Would you opt for a much more expensive, degrading AJAX-based solution for the sake of a few extra customers? Well, that's up to you. Personally I think it comes down to common sense when and when not to use Flash. Sadly the Web is littered with amateurs who will decry Flash at any given opportunity and a lot of the time they make themselves sound very, very stupid (although a lot of the time they're right by proxy, obviously).

randombar

Laslo wrote: »

Charging other businesses for web design and/or development services in order to make profit.

Eh I've made money for years off websites, not a lot but enough for a few nights out? I don't think it's fair to say "if you don't know when Flash should and shouldn't be used then don't sell Web design services professionally."

I am always straight up with people when it comes to my webdesign, they pay for what they're getting, i.e. a couple of 100 euros for a couple of static pages.

Fair enough I'm definitely not on the level of some of the designers here but that doesn't mean I can't make some money from designing websites!

Laslo

GaryCocs wrote: »

Eh I've made money for years off websites, not a lot but enough for a few nights out? I don't think it's fair to say "if you don't know when Flash should and shouldn't be used then don't sell Web design services professionally."

I am always straight up with people when it comes to my webdesign, they pay for what they're getting, i.e. a couple of 100 euros for a couple of static pages.

Fair enough I'm definitely not on the level of some of the designers here but that doesn't mean I can't make some money from designing websites!

Fair enough, as long as you're not duping your clients into believing that you're providing a top-market, professional service and they know that then that's fine. Nobody can stop you. Unfortunately all too often you get amateurs masquerading as professionals and, indeed, duping unaware clients into believing that they're getting a professional service. Not saying that you are of course.

leninbenjamin

zardette wrote: »

well I think they can be stunning and if you need a wow factor then they can provide that ..... here an example ...

http://www.tigerwoods.com/defaultflash.sps

if that's what you consider a good application of flash then you and me have very different opinions on the positive applications of flash. that's exactly the type of site that to me screams "I can make teh interwebs, me"

zardette

I think it good ...but perhaps a bit over the top
but then again maybe I am a bit biased cause I am a big fan


as for the original question well I think it a great one as I think a good professional web designer should always seeks advice before
learning a new technology !!

randombar

Laslo wrote: »

Fair enough, as long as you're not duping your clients into believing that you're providing a top-market, professional service and they know that then that's fine. Nobody can stop you. Unfortunately all too often you get amateurs masquerading as professionals and, indeed, duping unaware clients into believing that they're getting a professional service. Not saying that you are of course.

Nah my clients are mostly business friends so they know what they're getting, anyone that ups their web site design skills usually gets caught out pretty quick!

Laslo

GaryCocs wrote: »

anyone that ups their web site design skills usually gets caught out pretty quick!

Oh! I wouldn't be so sure of that.

randombar

jebus! 1000 notes for a basic website, i pity the poor companies that fall for that one!

Laslo

GaryCocs wrote: »

jebus! 1000 notes for a basic website, i pity the poor companies that fall for that one!

I would generally charge about 3k for a basic website. It's the quality that companies are getting for their money. My sites are worth 3k (I feel). Ripe's are worth about $60 from Template Monster. Anyway, let's not start another Ripe-bashing thread. The Web is already littered with them.

randombar

Nice money! But then again it's probably your job so fair play!