Web Design & Development Services
Flash Development
A few years back it seemed you couldn’t go anywhere on the web without being forced to sit through a tedious animation sequence before being let into a site. Clients and designers have mostly moved on from this now which can only be a good thing. Flash is a powerful and impressive tool but when applied incorrectly it can kill a site.
What Not To Do
The sins of Flash designers are many and varied but there are some main ones which crop up again and again. Watch out for these as they are signs that the designer hasn’t considered usability issues.
Build The Entire Site in Flash
Flash is a tool. You wouldn’t build a car entirely out of spanners so don’t build your site entirely in Flash. The correct application of Flash can greatly improve the look and functionality of your site, but apply it incorrectly and you can easily drive people away.
Flash sites cannot be bookmarked properly because they usually consist of a single page which assets are loaded into. They break browser controls by not allowing you to use the back button or resize your fonts. Unless you put a lot of effort into the planning stage, they are harder to rank in search engines and harder to keep updated than regular HTML sites.
Lengthy Animation Cycles
There’s nothing quite as annoying as sitting through an animation to get into a site and then having to sit through more animation every time you click on a link. The navigation might redraw itself or pictures and copy might whizz in from off page. Either way you have to sit waiting for this all to occur before you can reach the content you’re after. If it’s not what you were expecting you immediately click off elsewhere and have to sit through another animation cycle. Tedious!
Non-Selectable Text
Ever wanted to cut and paste the address details for a company from a site that’s built in Flash? Chances are you weren’t able to because the designer neglected to make the text selectable.
Flash Navigation
Avoid building your main navigation in Flash. You might think it looks great to have sparkles and lighting effects on your shiny buttons but search engines are not able to crawl the links and so will index your site poorly. At the very least provide a second text-only version of the navigation and use content replacement to ensure that users without the Flash plug-in (i.e. people who don’t have it, people who have it disabled and search engine spiders) will see links.
What To Do
When it’s used properly Flash can really connect you with your customers. Below are some suggestions about things you could do to add a bit of excitement and interaction to your site as well as some tips on how to ensure people see your Flash movies as intended.
Put Your Promo Online
If you have a promotional video, why not put it online? Flash video has exploded over the last year or two with sites such as YouTube and Google Video delivering streaming clips across the internet.
Viral Marketing
A great way to reach a large number of people is through the use of viral marketing. Create an addictive Flash game or an amusing animation, brand it with your logo and contact details and send it out to your clients. If you’ve done it right they’ll forward your link to their friends who in turn will forward it to theirs. Viral marketing makes the customer do the work for you and can yield fantastic results.
Video Tutorials
If you’re marketing a gadget or software and need to provide clear instructions on how to use it, why not use a simple animation or video tutorial? Written instructions are sufficient but to really communicate with your customers there’s nothing like a demonstration.
Provide Alternative Content
Always create backup assets so that if a user has the Flash plug-in disabled they will see something in its place. This could be as simple as an image to replace an animation. Also, make sure that if the user does not have the latest version of Flash that they’re given instructions on how to install it.
Flash Presentations
It’s also possible to use Flash instead of Powerpoint to create fantastic looking presentations for company meetings, pitches and promotional work. We can work with you to create a memorable interactive promo which will engage and entertain your audience.
Please contact us for more information about our Flash services.