I have seen some well designed flash, and some annoying page with flash. I am very curious, you think flash makes page look more proffesional or it is just ... over used?

I guess, my question is... do you prefer flash or no?

In general, I don't like flash. I'm not into the *bling*bling*

But it really depends on what the page is about or how much flash is being used. What animated GIF were in the mid 90's, flash is in the 00's :) Well, nothing was as bad as animated GIF's from the mid 90's :sickface:

I like the clean corporate look.

ps. Welcome to WHT and I like your domain name.

Actually flash has its browser limitations, most flash sites tend to leave you looking at a "loading..." animation. The question is, though: is it better to have one very long wait while an entire site downloads, or a very shorter waits every time you click ? However personally I am not fully against of flash.

well, if you take a peek at 2advanced.com you'll see proper use of flash. But, onfortunately like any other (scripting)language, it can be misused as well...

A static HTML base version of the flash site with well written content would be better choice. However CSS2 might be considered also a better approach.

Flash is very usefull for presentations, funny clips and games, etc. In my opinion, it should only be used for that. Most visitors don't want flash: they just want to get the information available on your website. Even worse: flash intro's. If you still want to use flash, try to have a good mix (a flash header for example or a flash menu) but make the base of your site static.

Flash is very good for visualization of dynamic generated XML.
The effect is beyond the abilities of the boring HTML, the result is something serious and dynamic, if the colors are not too many
ili if it is not too colored..

I personally do not like flash to be used on web-sites... It is very annoying when it makes you wait until it fully loads.. However, Flash is very useful for fun clips, simple games...

Anmar.

Originally posted by likedesign
I have seen some well designed flash, and some annoying page with flash. I am very curious, you think flash makes page look more proffesional or it is just ... over used?

I guess, my question is... do you prefer flash or no?

Flash is very useful. It can be used to make programs, games, websites and other useful materials. But it does have its limits especially for websites. The average flash site takes ten years to load and the flash animation you waited for is not worth 1/100 of the time it took. Also if your site is filled up with flash and not much text you will have a hard time getting good rankings on major search engines.

Flash if compressed right and used in the right messures can make a site look more professional just be careful when using it.

Make a flash section on your website that users can go to if they wish, then you can have your cake and eat it is my opinion .

If a new user was to block the activex on a full flash site upon website entry for the first time. that would be one potential visitor you have lost and if that was to happen even 40 times a day, thats 14000+ visitor lost in a year and that could be forever, simple because they could be new to the net or dont trust the content.

A flash section being seperate seems better to me because it is different content your site has to offer which keeps your vistors/members browsing longer and enjoying your creation.

.

Originally posted by Oliver Twist
Make a flash section on your website that users can go to if they wish, then you can have your cake and eat it is my opinion .

If a new user was to block the activex on a full flash site upon website entry for the first time. that would be one potential visitor you have lost and if that was to happen even 40 times a day, thats 14000+ visitor lost in a year and that could be forever, simple because they could be new to the net or dont trust the content.

A flash section being seperate seems better to me because it is different content your site has to offer which keeps your vistors/members browsing longer and enjoying your creation.

.

Now that is a very good idea.
Just make sure if you do that to have the primary home page(yoursite.com/index.html) to be the non-flash one and have a link to view in flash because I have seen where splash pages can decrease your appearance in the search engines.

Making a site in flash is generally a bad idea for many reasons, also often the flash sites I see you could've actually done in html/css/javascript. Flash does work nicely for things like banners thouh, just make sure you have something to replace it for people that don't ahve the flash plugin.

Flash is great for presentations (interactive or not), games, and in-browser applications. Use it if there is a good reason to use it, not "because I can." If giving your visitor a fun, interactive experience when checking out your site is something you want, Flash is probably your best bet. However, if all your user is going to want to do is read information on your site then I wouldn't use it.

Originally posted by amygdela
well, if you take a peek at 2advanced.com you'll see proper use of flash. But, onfortunately like any other (scripting)language, it can be misused as well...

YEAH!! I know 2Advanced!

I used to like flash, but mainly flash made the site look unprofessional, the way I look at it, you can do just the same as coding (Like perl/php/c++)
Having flash is a great way to catch people's eyes, only not having to much flash on the site.
It's great to have something virtually moving, that a boring nothing moving site (Like this forum ;) )

I'd say not to use to much, but not to less, about average.

Flash introductions are a really bad usage of flash, what really is the point? People what to see content right away, a flash intro just makes people click their "back" button on their browser. Its like a business forcing you watch a stupid movie of their logo flying around before you can enter in their store. I don't think there is a single study that shows these intros are effective in any way.

I think flash can add a lot to a website if it something like someone else already mentioned, just use a flash header and have static html as well. A flash header can be under 60k or less, and that will load pretty fast, even for dialup users and can really enhance the website if done correctly.

Originally posted by rootbug


ps. Welcome to WHT and I like your domain name.

Thanks RootBug... I think that is the only good thing about my site. I am trying to improve the design. I will see if I can come up with something better next time.

-lbwd.net - I think it looks okay. I mean, for a design website, showing off that you know flash, give credibility, so I think it's a good thing.

Look like most people here are not big fan of Flash. I like website without Flash better too, mabye a little bit on the banner. Makes the site looks more proffesional. Other than that, I do not see much use, except for interaction.

Originally posted by etechsupport2
Actually flash has its browser limitations, most flash sites tend to leave you looking at a "loading..." animation. The question is, though: is it better to have one very long wait while an entire site downloads, or a very shorter waits every time you click ? However personally I am not fully against of flash.


It is better to load each page separatly, as if you don't go to some pages, you won't load them...


It all depends on how you use Flash, but IMO it can be really useful.

Originally posted by amygdela
well, if you take a peek at 2advanced.com you'll see proper use of flash. But, onfortunately like any other (scripting)language, it can be misused as well...


I agree with you that it is being misused. Overall it altogether depends upon the creativity and intelligence of a web designer as how he is going to implement it and projecting it in a very professional way if possible.

"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence transform a yellow spot into the sun". -Pablo Picasso

Thank you LIKEDESIGN. I am going to start on a new site that is more proficient and clean. I will place a small flash file in the top banner.

I'll leave out the intro, as it is too long and could direct eyes to the BACK button.

Thank you for your thoughts.

depends how its used, some people overuse flash like they would overuse images on a web site. personally i love flash and we base our company on flash technology and development. adding a flash menu or a nice header will add a great design element to the site design. your flash piece file size should not be greater than an image on your web site and also have the ability to display an image if the plugin is not detected (which is rare nowadays). in the upcoming years you will see flash used more and more on banners, sites and applications with the growing broadband usage... lets face it flash is taking over the rich media world!

I use flash, but not for the entire site. I agree with the person who said that using flash for a whole site can be annoying.

The last time I looked into this it appeared that flash sites were on the decline. When Javascript first came out there were tons of people that wrote their sites in javascript...people realized what a bad idea that was. Now you see Javascript just adding a little bit of flare to the site. I think they are now realizing what a bad idea it is to make a site in flash too.

Flash is also a major resource hog...I really don't know why the implementation is so bad. Also the plugins for linux are really bad.
I wonder why companies are more willing to spend time with mac than linux despite the fact that they have about the same market share.

Flash sites are mostly for MOVIE TRAILERS and sites that are advertised on TV that'll be viewed by desperate people.

I suggest that you do a top banner or some small creative flash file.

To determine how effective FLASH can be, you first need to look at the goals of the site you're designing. If you're building a site that is "content rich", like a marketing or a brochure site you can do some very compelling work with FLASH either as the framework for the whole site or as elements for animated and interactive content; these take very little time to load. If the site you're working on is a commerce site, you can still use it (recommendation: mostly as elements), but you have to take into account the preferences of the users that will access the site and if by using FLASH you can convey something that you wouldn't be able to communicate otherwise.

I love FLASH, and my company works with a design firm that's really good at it, but for me it's always important to not over do it.

Just My 2 Cents.

With the new version 7 and the upcoming 8, flash seems to become a good solution for streaming video.

The player adoption can't be beaten... and it solves the whole quicktime/media player/real player problem when deciding how to publish video content online.

abmcosta,
You're totally right on both counts. Our design partner does a lot of work with broadcast production companies and they do all their clients' video in FLASH because it streams well and is very hard for users to download and plagiarize. You can't just download a movie file and keep it; it has to be played within a FLASH container so it limits the ability of reuse on clandestine websites.

Regarding, adoption… FLASH’s adoption is phenomenal. There’s no other plug-in out there with such a wide user-base (not even Quicktime).

But with all that in mind, as a designer you’ve still got to know when and how to apply it properly.

The most lasting impressions are the bad ones. There's a lot of bad-flash-sites out there, but there's also a lot of bad-non-flash-sites.
What I can't understand nor tolerate is the notion some people have that the medium can be the message...

Someone mentioned animated GIFs of the 90's, but for those of us who were around during the DTP revolution of the 80's we surely remember a similar phenomenon in print design. It was like: "Wow! I can distort this typeface now, so I will!" or "Gee! Gradients! How cool!".

The widespread use of computers in all walks of life has the democratic liberating effect of leveling out opportunities (i.e., in this case, not only designers get to have designer's tools) but also has the downside of contributing to raise the "entropy" of the industries it affects, generating a lot of noise. That's what happened with Flash. But I think good taste and plain common sense are taking over again and Flash has been used to great effect. We've seen a lot of the initial hysteria die down already...

Cheers,

This is very great. I've received a lot of valuable inputs here. Carlos made an excellent point here. The facts is, anything can be put in good use when do it properly. The key is - properly.

In my opinion, Flash is the future. With broadband is getting more and more popular, and cheapter now now, it would not be a bad idea to do flash 10 years from now. I can see that with more competitions, broad band will replace dial up real soon. Look at SBC now, 14 dollars. That is cheaper than American online. Would it be fun if this discussion still be kept 10 years from now? Probably 10 years from now.... we be saying.. I remember the day, that we actually used "html".

Thanks guys for the input.