The Pros and Cons of Flash-enabled Sites
Flash-enabled websites have been the craze in the past few years, as Macro-media compiles more great features into Flash, we can predict that there will be more and more flash sites popping up on the Internet. However, Flash based websites have been said to be bloated and very unnecessary. Where exactly should we draw the line? Here’s a look at a simple breakdown.
The good point’s:
Interactivity
Flash’s Action-script opens up a big field of possibilities.Web programmers and designers use Flash to create some interactive features ranging from feedback forms to Flash-enabled games. This type of new interactivity will always help make visitors keep coming back for more.
A standardized website
With Flash, you don’t need to worry about the cross-browser compatibility issue. No more worries about how a css code may display differently on Fire Fox,Opera or Internet Explorer. When you put your website elements in Flash, they’ll always appear the same in each browser as long as the viewer has the Flash Player installed.
Somewhat better expression through animation
In Flash, you can make use of the animating features to convey your message in a lot more effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation being it is vector based (hence much smaller file sizes) as opposed to the real “movie files” that are raster based and much larger in size.
Here’s the bad the ugly:
The Flash player
People have to download the Flash player before they can watch Flash movies, so by using Flash your website visitor range may decrease considerably, not everyone will want or be willing to download this Flash player just to be able to view flash site’s. You’ll also have to put in a lot additional work to redirect your website user to the Flash player download page if he/she doesn’t already have the flash player installed on their computer.
Website Optimization
If your website’s content is presented in Flash, most search engines won’t be able to index the content of your website. Thus, you’re not able to rank your website very well in search engines and you will get less traffic from search engine’s to your website.
Slow loading time
Your website users will have to wait a little longer than usual for Flash content to load compared to regular text and images, some visitors will probably lose interest and just click to go to another website. The longer your flash website takes to load, the more risk you have of losing visitors.
The best way is to use Flash only when you absolutely think that you need the interactivity and motion that it provides you. Otherwise, you should try to use a mixture of html and flash.
