Are flashers missing the point?

'Are we missing the point?' suddenly a voice came from the back of my head, as I stared upon this bouncing, futuristic flash site.

Is this what 'god' intended it to be? What the hell is this site's purpose? Clicking my finger off and being attacked by this Star-Trek sounds with flying objects and buttons surrounding me. 'STOP!' I've shouted quietly and pressed the X closing button. That was the end of this adventure... or was it?

Abusing Flash?
I know many dealt with it before - is flash being abused by over-professional designers? But then again, what exactly is 'abusing flash'? Well, from my point of view there's no such thing as 'abusing flash'. Flash is there to give freedom to your most chaotic design visions. This app has made digital designing a great way of expressing ourselves and is one giant step for all computer animators, but enough said about flash.

Abusing this software's capabilities is blessed and that is why we see a lot of amazing stuff being done on web sites and on pure animation. But hold on for a sec, did anyone think of the way that the surrounding platform of a flash movie limits the movie's creativity? Well if you didn't then this is, my brothers, abusing flash.

What the user wants
Say you go out touring the endless web, Searching for a solution to whatever you need. Going from this search engine to another, and then, Wazoo, you found the site. Most of us just want a miserable HTML low budget link to take them to the light, but NO, the (so called) web developer is absolutely positive that you own the latest flash plug-in and now gives you the endless loading procedure for the site.

'Well, what the ....' you think to yourself as you watch the percent bar advancing like a dying snail. 'I'll wait, maybe I'll catch some good design for a change'. Suddenly it all quiets and BOOM! Flying buttons are after you. Triangles are changing shapes and colors. Wait! No! Hold on! CA-BOOM the menu splashes on the screen. 'Try and catch me' you hear it laughs as it fades away. But all you needed is that stupid link.
Most of the time you don't even know to which site you have entered. What are the site objectives? What is the fastest way to get to your desired information? All those things the web has the reputation of being so good at… lost in the haze. I could on and on, but no good will come out of it. Instead, here's some useful pointers I can give to every flash designer who wants to go on-line.

1. Always assume the worst. In our case, assume that you site's users don't have any flash plug-ins, or even worst than that, don't want to enter a flash generated site. Always create a simple HTML homepage, which will be the first page the user bumps to. In this page, let the user choose his interface: flash or HTML.
2. People on the web are less patient than they are in a car jam. If you insist on a big scale site, which requires a loading phase, make the loading short by cutting the main big movie into small ones. Try to add some useful information to the loading process, such as the site's theme and purposes.
3. On the site itself, make sure that the menu or the navigation bar pops up quickly and clearly. Don't mess around with over-animation on this part of the site. Navigation is the most important part of your site (after content), therefore make it visible and accessible all the time.
4. Too much movements and flash zapping will only hurt the user eyes and the only thing they will see is the X closing window button so try to make your site flow with no extreme halts or explosions. Also try to match the colors to something the user will find relaxing and comfortable.
5. Music easily annoys the web users, especially those undying .wav loops. If you insist on one, please provide a mute button.
6. A site map is not such a bad idea. Remember that most of us just want to get in, take the stuff, and go out. A site map is the best then.

For conclusion, flash for the web is very limited due to the fact that it should answer a lot of Internet's demands. When building a site, try not to think only on how you going to perform all your amazing flash stunts, but focus on the usability of the site. After all, you're providing something to the web community.
Flash on.

Written by Matti Bar Zeev (November 07th 2001)