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Hey Marisa, I want a cool website. I like website X. Can you go look at it?

Invariably, it’s Flash-based. I cringe. And sigh. And start to try and explain why I don’t recommend my clients build websites based on Flash.

1. It’s usually poorly done.

   As Gerry McGovern, Content Guru says,

   What is a Flash intro except a fourth rate TV ad by someone who knows that they will never get the chance to do a real TV ad?

There’s just no way I could say that better. Look, if you want to drop some cash on a TV ad and risk people Tivoing your ad to oblivion, be my guest. I could think of a lot of better uses for that cash, but if that’s what you want to do, go ahead. But please, don’t waste that same cash hiring someone who couldn’t even produce one of those hideous local-cable-outlet-produced cheapo commercials to mangle your website.

2. It just makes you look stupid.

   People use Flash to convince their viewers that they are hip and cool and know how to do hip, cool things online. Well, the fact is most people are neither hip nor cool, and using Flash doesn’t make you hip or cool. In other words, you can dress your cat up in Ray-Bans, a leather skirt and Manolo Blahniks, but he’s never going to get on the cover of Vogue. He’s going to sit there and look stupid and be uncomfortable until someone comes along and rescues him so he can lie around in all his glorious feline nakedness and bask in the sun licking his paws, like he’s meant to do.

3. It’s search engine-unfriendly.

   Well, you didn’t build your website so that people could actually find it, did you? You’d like to remain number 4,675 in the search results, wouldn’t you? It’s fun to be the best-kept secret on the Internet! Listen, Google is smart, but it would take a crystal ball to see inside those Flash files and figure out what content they are presented. And until Google has $500 Billion to hire some poor sap to humanly look at all 700 Billion websites in the world, and go to your website and tell it what your whizz-bang Flash file is showing, they’re going to use their Googlebot which will see that telltale .swf and keep right on moving until they find some actual text to search. Oh wait… Google already has that much money. Hmmm. Anyway…

4. It’s unnecessary.

   You want a nice little image slideshow? Use javascript. Use an animated gif if you must have the bling-bling. But you know what? Your users’ eyes will just slide right over your flash-n-dash and get to the information or product they were looking for in the first place. You have just put another obstacle in between your user and their goal, and if there’s one thing I’m always haranguing my clients about, that would be it.

5. It limits the accessibility of your site.

   You have just declared “sorry, we’re closed!” to all your visitors except those who have a broadband connection AND a fast computer AND have the Flash plugin AND a browser that likes it. I have a broadband connection and a super-quick computer (iMac G5 baby!) but I use The Best Browser in the World, Firefox and it hates Flash, so a lot of the time it just breaks it. But you know what? I never feel like I’m missing anything important.

6. It breaks your usability.

   Jakob Nielsen, foremost usability expert online says that there are basic rules of expectations that people on the web have when they come to your site. Among the hundreds of expectations people have is that they have some control over how they interact with a website. They’d like to be able to use their back button. They’d like to change the font size if they’re half-blind. They expect your navigation to be on the top or the side, not in some funky oval or triangular shape. If you force users to learn how to use your site by breaking these expectations, you’re less likely to achieve your goal - to get them to buy something, or look at your photo gallery, or whatever your goal is.

7. You run the risk of being AdBlocked.

   My awesomely cool browser also has a plugin that shields me from the worst forms of online advertising, and every time it detects a piece of Flash it gives me a nifty little semi-transparent tab above it saying “get rid of this piece of crap foisted on you by a 4th-rate ad designer” or something similar to that, and I just click it and the Flash goes bye-bye. Good for me, bad for your way-cool little ad you spent a couple grand on.

8. It’s nearly impossible to maintain.

   So we have this client who takes amazing, breathtaking pictures. He also currently chooses to live in one of the most volatile and dangerous places on the planet: the Gaza Strip. Anyhoo, recently he published a gorgeous coffee-table book full of his pictures and his wife’s historical commentary. He put out a companion cd to the book. Now, the nice thing about a cd is you can print a couple thousand of them, and if you’d like to make some changes or additions to your content you can quickly and cheaply add some stuff before you press more of them, unlike the book version. He decided he wanted to change some stuff on the cd. No problem, right? Wrong. Guess what the cd was done in: Yep! Flash. So the old designer basically held his content ransom, refused him access to the source files and told him if he wanted to change anything, he’d have to pony up for it. Don’t like that example?

   Here’s another one.

   My sincere and profuse apologies to my dear sister, but she has the worst website on the planet. Now you might go there and say, what’s wrong with it? It’s got this cute little intro with a little boom sound! It moves! It splashes! It dashes! It Flashes, even! Well, I’ll tell you what: if you can find your way to the client page (bad usability) have a good look at it. Based on her client list, you might assume she went out of business 5 years ago - because that’s how old the projects on her list are. Is she just too lazy to update it? No, she paid some guy in Pakistan 5 or 10 bucks to do her website, and he’s the only one who can update her client list. So her website has remained completely and totally the same since she developed it. Nice, for somebody in the movie industry where reputation and image are everything. Get on the ball, sis!! Come to YVOD and let us make you something that really represents you - that you can change as easily as typing some text into your browser. Why do you resist so ferociously? Ah well, she’ll come around eventually.

If you’re thinking, c’mon Marisa, stop being such a hard-ass, there are exceptions to everything, here are the exceptions to my rule:

• If you are a movie producer and you want previews of your movies to show on your website, you need either Flash or Quicktime or an unmentionable Micro$oft product to do that. Personally, I prefer Quicktime.
• If your product is so complicated that you need to create an animated demo of it, you need to go back, talk to your users, start from scratch and redesign your product so it actually meets their needs. Seriously. But if you’re too lazy to do that, you could use Flash and make a little demo.
• If you are a Flash designer and you need to make a portfolio … dude, you should come to grips with your 4th-rateness and choose another profession like mopping the bathroom stalls in an elementary school. Ha ha.
• If you make online video games, you might need Flash. Or you might just use Java instead.
• If you are my friend Hoj and you are a seriously bad-ass Flash designer, more power to you, may you live in peace and prosper forever. Good luck with your real animation career after you move past Flash.

Everyone else, get a clue.

If you don’t need Flash and you can’t afford to do it right or you want people to be able to find and use your site, resist the urge and just say no to Flash. Your website will thank you for it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Usability, Rants & Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.