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Flash Recommendations for the Beginning
Personally, I enjoy a flash site in many ways. It's
professional and neat, and adds a dramatic effect to
the website.
What Is Flash?
It's a technology developed by Macromedia that allows
the ordinary webmaster to create extraordinary applications
on their website. In the normal web design world, it would
take ten times longer to create some of the applications
available in Flash.
Listed Below are Some of the Key Features of Flash:
- Scrollable Text Fields: display more text in a window
- Missing Font Substitution: pick a substitute font upon open
- Multi-lingual Support Unicode Support: represent multiple
languages
- Quick Start Templates: pre-built templates ship with
Macromedia Flash MX
- Built-in Lessons, Tutorials, and Samples
- Design for Multiple Mediums: the Macromedia Flash Player
is available on multiple browsers and operating systems
- Video Support: import and manipulate any standard video file
- Dynamic Loading of JPEGs and MP3 Files at Runtime
- High-fidelity Audio Support: support for MP3, ADPCM, and more
These are just a few of the features Flash offers that
I find appealing. As you can see, Flash has much to offer
for webmaster, advanced or beginner.
The purpose of this article is not to discourage you from
using Flash, but to encourage you to use it wisely.
Here's my personal experience with websites designed
with Flash or that use Flash in some way. I haven't
used Flash to design yet, but will possibly try it
in the future.
I've been to several websites who used Flash solely to
design their site. Before I could enter their site,
I was prompted by my browser to download the new Flash
plug-in. Instead of downloading the new Flash plug-in,
I clicked "Cancel" and went searching for a different
website that didn't use Flash.
Here's why:
My thoughts were, "Why should I have to download something
onto my computer when I don't even know if I will like their
site or not? I don't see the point in downloading anything
unless it's a necessity!" If I "must" get to their site,
I will "unwillingly" download the new plug-in. But if
I can find another site for the same purpose, I will
not download.
If you're using Flash for all of your site's design,
you're probably losing visitors left and right. There
are a few people who will download anything, but if
most are like me, they will move on to a site where
they are not required to download anything.
Does this mean that you should never use Flash? No.
That's not what I'm saying.
Here's another scenario I found interesting...
I went to a site where, on the homepage, I was given
the option to view their website the normal way or
with the Flash presentation. Of course, I chose
the normal way because I didn't want to download
anything without knowing what their site is about.
However, later on, while surfing through their site,
I found a really interesting tutorial that I wanted
to view. Once again, I had an option to view the tutorial
using normal pages or Flash. Oddly, I chose Flash because
I was curious. So I downloaded the Flash plug-in at that
time and viewed the tutorial. I thoroughly enjoyed the
tutorial in Flash, but wasn't willing to try it until
I felt comfortable at that website.
The point I'm trying to make is that website owners
should never assume that their potential visitors will
download a plug-in just to view their site. They
should assume that some will and some will not.
Also, some visitors may already have the plug-in,
some may not. I am a web designer who has been
on the Internet for six years learning and teaching
design and DID NOT have the NEW Flash plug-in.
Not everyone jumps on the wagon for every new
innovative product.
Here are some suggestions if you're going to use
Flash:
1) Design your site in two different ways...
a) Using Flash
b) Using a normal design program or plain HTML.
2) Design your "homepage" with normal HTML (no
plug-in required) and from your homepage, offer a choice
for the visitor to view your site in Plain View
or using Flash. As mentioned earlier, you will have
some visitors to choose Flash who already have the
plug-in. For those who do not, and are skeptic about
downloading, you'll offer the normal viewing of your
site. The reason you'll want to use normal HTML
design for your "homepage" is because this is where
many people will first enter your site. Even
those without a plug-in will be able to view the homepage,
and you will not risk driving them away.
3) Use Flash within your site to illustrate certain
features, such as tutorials, product presentations,
photo galleries, etc. NOTE: Do still offer the
"choice" with these presentations as well whenever possible.
4) With any new innovative product, slowly incorporate
it into your website. Don't put all of your eggs into
one basket, as they always say (whoever "they" are).
Use these tips to maximize your site's visitors and
potential for sales. While enhancing your design, you
can also increase traffic.
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