Flash = Web Site Poison
Flash is poison for most websites. When one sits down to build a website in flash the designer always tends to focus more on the novelty of the vast capabilities of flash rather than communicating the content. A majority of flash websites should receive an F for communicating information-they might look pretty or be cool (whatever that's good for) but they have lost their purpose. That aside they do have an eye candy element that draws one to them. Here are a couple of links to sites that are excellent eye candy - whether they are capable of transmitting information or not, I will leave up to you (click the images to launch the site):
On occasions, Flash gets so out of hand that you can't even use the site. For example the below website for the MoMa. The site is gorgeous, but I can barely click on what I want to. The site gets an empathic F- for usability.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:01 AM
1 Comments:
Well said, Mike. Sites such as these will become less and less commonplace and eventually reduced to a novelty on the web. I think people understand this and want that.
In my opinion, Flash used best is in simple navigation, little widgets, etc. This one site NewsToday has a nice little use of flash in the upper-left corner graphic. Click on it and boom related content appears. That's the kind of widget I see becoming more useful and relevant in the near future.
A part of me really feels bad for companies that do these huge, blow-out flash sites-- especially the themed ones -- because themes over time get tired.
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