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To Flash or not to Flash

Flash animations can be some of the coolest things on the Internet. They can also bog down your visitor's system resources and keep them waiting far too long. A good Flash designer knows how to keep load times down and the drain on the visitor's computer resources to a minimum.

With a few exceptions, an all Flash website is almost always a bad idea. Search engines have a hard time with these types of sites. If natural search engine optimization or SEO is even a small part of your online marketing strategy, then you will want to avoid an all Flash site like the plague. However, if you are an artist or say a Flash designer, then it could be a good fit. There are quite a few design advantages to an all Flash site, but unfortunately they almost always get outweighed by the significant number of other disadvantages.

The most effective way to incorporate Flash animations and video into your website is in individual movies placed where needed. This allows for easy spidering by the search engines. It also ensures the rest of your website is available in the off chance that a visitor doesn't have or has disabled the Flash Player. It also typically means shorter load times than a website built entirely in Flash. As a rule of thumb, the smaller the individual Flash movies are, the better off you site will be.

Not too long ago I was adding a Flash movie I had created for a client's website but when I went to test it, I got this message displayed as I clicked on it: click to activate and use this control. What the heck? It turns out it is a new security feature in IE. Thankfully it is easily fixed with a short bit of JavaScript. I have included a link to the solution for this problem at the end of this article.

Just because you can animate something doesn't mean you should. This will have a lot to do with your website's audience, but typically less animation is better than more. Try to think like a Japanese interior designer when deciding how much animation is too much. Less is always more.

Don't use fast motions to attract your visitor's attention. Keep it smooth and well paced. Slower is much better than faster. You don't want to make your visitors wait, but you also don't want to make them wonder what they just missed.

Staying at least two release versions behind the bleeding edge is always a smart way to go. The Flash Player is now in its 9th full version, and definitely won't stop there. Macromedia, now owned by Adobe, is constantly adding new features to the Flash Player to enhance the capabilities and fix known bugs. There is about a years lag time before the latest Flash Player is on at least 80% of the systems browsing the web. To make sure that your visitors don't have to download the latest Flash Player to view your Flash movie, make sure you only use features that have been out for at least a year. Admittedly having to download the latest player isn't the worst thing in the world, but why make your visitor go through even a little bit of a hassle when it isn't necessary?

Have quality flash movies and videos. If I do have to wait a few seconds to see a Flash movie, I want it to be worth the wait. This almost always means hiring a professional flash designer. Flash is a very complicated program with a very steep learning curve. Don't waste your time beating your head against the wall. Focus on your core business and let a professional handle this part.

Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles

Come check out Dustin's other articles on good Flash design and download the JavaScript fix and installation instructions for that pesky IE security message: click to activate and use this control Click here for other unique Flash articles.

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