Webiste: Using Flash? Yay or Nay?

Mensch Maschine

Hi,

I'm a photographer that is in the talking stages of having a website built by a family member. Is it advisable that I have a flash based site?

To many, flash sites are a nuisance and to some they are praised.

Putting yourself in my shoes. What do you think would suit my business?

- I use a lot of colour in my photography
- I'm young and want to appeal to 'the next/current generation' and want to steer away from the usual black website's with boring black and white photos.
- I want to be accessible and want the site to be simple, appealing, minimalist where the photos tell the story, the site will only be a means in doing so.

I appreciate some advice from you guys out there from a web designing background.

I think (it was months ago) my brother and I discussed Flash having downsides but then I found this site and I love it.

http://www.fredrikclement.com/#/home

What are the advantages/disadvantages ?

Thanks

tricky D

Flash is a super technology for animations, video, streaming, games and presentations, but it is awful for regular website functions, SEO, accessibility, compatibility, updating, doesn't work on iPhones and the like and a few other business-critical matters. There are plenty of gallery functions these days which can do most of what Flash can but in a far more effective way. jQuery galleries or slideshows (highslide or lightbox) with regular html is what you should consider looking at using.

The site you cite has some classic Flash implementations that frustrate users big time:

• It has one of those loading status things which most users simply groan at
• It takes over 10 seconds to load, again annoying users with another reason to groan (world wide wait concept)
• The navigation is superimposed over the pix, why???
• I can't copy and paste the contact details
• The navigation is anti-intuitive and does unexpected things, users don't like that
• The bottom gallery navigation is easily missed, I didn't notice it for quite a while and was just left thinking how the hell do I get out of the gallery
• After a while something makes my cursor disappear
• My right click functions are gone
• Loss of status bar feedback

In short, it gets a big Nay.

Neodymium

I'm not a web designer, so there are people on here more qualified to speak on this subject than I am but I do have my own website.

Many of the things you can do in flash with animations and stuff, can now be accomplished using css3 and html5. HTML5 and CSS3 are both fairly new compared to flash, but many people and companies including apple and google are hailing html5 to be the successor to flash. Flash still has more features than html5 but some very impressive sites can be made using html5 and css3 see this one for example: http://www.lexways.com/

Here are some of the advantages/disadvantages that I know of for HTML5/CSS3 and Flash. Again I'm not an expert so I'm open to correction on these.

Flash:
• Not as search engine friendly as html so SEO can be difficult.
• Longer loading times than html
• Flash is not supported iphone/ipod touch.
• Has more features than html5/css3

html5/css3:
• Search engine friendly
• Loads quicker than flash
• Works on iphone/ipod touch
• Not all the features of html5/css3 are supported in all of the browsers. I know from personal experience that many css3 features are not supported by Internet Explorer before IE9 and IE9 still does not support some features.

If I've missed anything or got something wrong I'm sure someone else will correct me.

[EDIT] Oops looks like trickyD got there before me

KerranJast

Yeah definitely steer clear of Flash as much as possible. Use jQuery and its various plugins to accomplish the same behaviour in a slick cross platform way.

cormee

Don't touch Flash, previous posters have given the reasons why you shouldn't, so no point me repeating.

Edit: that example you gave doesn't seem to work using Google Chrome

Mensch Maschine

Hi guys,

I'm grateful for all your informative posts. I really appreciate it. I now have a better understanding and I'll use your good advice.

Since making this post I found a very inpsiring simple non-Flash site I like and will like to have something kind of similar.

Cheers

p

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is more nuanced. Since the iphone & ipad don't support flash, and they're growing in popularity, it's probably not worth it anymore, but since they're relatively small platforms you could probably do it if you wanted to make use of Flash's specific advantages.

Also, i'd take issue with many of the additional points raised above, as they repeat many misguided and incorrect points regarding Flash.
All of the issues mentioned are with bad use of Flash. I guarantee you, that you can (and will find increasingly more) sites than abuse HTML5 in a similar manner. For Flash-like qualities in HTML then you'll often have to resort to ignoring older browsers, particularly IE8 and below. Depending on your market and audience, that market could be more valuable to you than iPad users. That should really be a business evaluation rather than an emotional or technical allegiance decision.

p

BTW - I'd very heavily suggest getting a Photographer template web design and customizing that, rather than building from scratch. (Depending on the family members skills)

cargocollective.com, krop.com and wordpress.com all have great free and commercial photography templates that are very professional and customizable.

Lantus

The site you mentioned took ages to load. I simply hate that about flash. It's all too likley that people will click away from the page rather than wait. You have on average 20 seconds on a good day to get someones attention and deliver the information they want before they try elsewhere. They waste 10 to 15 seconds on a loading screen and then a bizzare navigation system while I have to wait 5+ seconds a time for EACH pic to load. simply awful and it doesn't compensate for the pictures.

A good HTML site with the right additions would do a much better job. Often flash sites are used too much by creative and artistic types who base all their decisions on presentation and looks (like their creative art) but dont consider any practical aspects of what they are trying to do.

Liam Byrne

Flash will also absolutely HAMMER your chances of getting found in Google or other major search engines.

It's a complete no-no for that reason alone; add in the issues outlined above and it simply does not make sense.

EDIT : Just sat through the loading crap on that website and the result is absolutely horrendous - it's a woeful site.

cormee

p wrote: »

BTW - I'd very heavily suggest getting a Photographer template web design and customizing that, rather than building from scratch. (Depending on the family members skills)

cargocollective.com, krop.com and wordpress.com all have great free and commercial photography templates that are very professional and customizable.

As P suggested, download a theme and make some customisations if you need to. No point reinventing the wheel and there's dozens of excellent (WordPress) themes available available for photographers. You'll save a fortune, and if your designer is any use he/she could have the site up and running in less than an hour. Check out http://themeforest.net/

PCPhoto

as a photographer I'd say go with flash .... less chance of you getting work and more for meeeee

had a look at the site and it seems very..... americanized !!if that makes sense.

layout is fine, images are clean/clear but not really aimed at the Irish market - you need to do some GAA Hurling/Football, Soccer, Hockey, Rugby, Boxing, Camogie.

What do you shoot with ? Canon/Nikon ....another system ? if you shoot Canon I can sort you out with lenses etc....have lenses from 16mm to 600mm.

Drop me a PM and I'll try arrange to bring you to some local or international games (I'm away on Holidays from this sat till start of Sept - but can bring you out in Sept to some games - if there are some on - Airtricity League, maybe some Rugby.)

EDIT: Also ...get into the photo forum ...chat with some of the people there - build some connections/contacts.

Trojan

Some great posts from the guys above.

My short rule of thumb when asked this question is:

• Using Flash in the website - yes, only when it does something that can't be done in a better way (e.g. Javascript/CSS)
• Using Flash as the entire website - absolutely no under 99.9% of circumstances*

* the potential exception is in corporate intranet where you have complete control of environment and require something Flash based - and even then you should reconsider.

sheesh

+1 on the no side here too. for all the reasons outlined above. the mai reason being google.

If you really like flash and really want to use it in a site you could use bits of it on the pages that have regular html text. If you want to show off you flash skills I would have a flash section for your site and work it in that way.

If you want to appeal to young people you are going to probably have be able to show your site on a smartphone easiest way to do that is html 5.

edit: just looked at the site. your right, it is very nice, but all that can be achieved with jquery I think I have seen it on a couple of sites.

visual

another no to flash

I try to place myself in the users position and after all its their experience that counts.... I always recommend keep it simple stupid !

MrPicante

That's a no no if you are relying on search engines to deliver traffic