Why is flash so widely used?

[Myra]

To web designers,

I'm wondering why flash used so much because according to my scholarly research (sitting on my ass surfing the net) google can have trouble with it and people don't tend to like it.

Google says this about that (oh god, I'm talking like Nixon):
"If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Macromedia Flash keep you from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then spiders may have trouble crawling it."
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&ctx=related

And according to this article:
"Flash animations are an obvious, yet stellar, example of what users hate in a Web site; the skip intro button is the most used button on the Internet."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/14/79274_HNhateaboutwebsites_1.html

A lot of flash seems seems, well er, too flashy and gaudy to me, and does serve as a barrier to the content I want. I'm not dissing flash totally, I've seen sites that create amazing effects with it. And I've seen sites that use it in context to expand on their content.

But, given that google can find it problematic and it can alienate a lot of users (I'm one), why is it so widely used? Do clients frequently request flash?

Myra

[Andilinks]

Flash is often a vehicle for expressing the creativity, imagination and ego of web designers. Since some of them have sales skills as well they can sometimes get others to pay for their creative flourishes.

Do clients frequently request flash?I don't interact with clients myself but I speculate that they do, not knowing the drawbacks. Since it is more fun to create flash and is just as profitable for the web designer there is little incentive to inform the clients that an ordinary text site would be better for business. If the web designer had a piece of the business I'll bet things would be different.

Since I'm in the business of cataloging fashion sites, I see a lot of it and am acutely aware of why flash is great for the ego of the site owner or designer but does little for the bottom line at retail. You'll notice that the most successful ecommerce sites use little flash.

The site of the actual fashion designer on the other hand only needs to dazzle and does not close the sale or ring the register so flash is probably appropriate there if enough text also exists for search engines and ::ahem:: directory makers.

The site of the fashion designer or manufacturer needs to motivate the visitor to go to a store or to another site by being the coolest, so it's a different approach than retail.

Andi

[kitchin]

Flash is probably the most advanced graphics player you can count on most web browsers having. It does animations faster than Java. It's a great lightweight program. Movie sites now use it for video because Flash is more universal that actual video players. Probably better too. It's proprietary, but I don't see too many complaints about the technology (contrast: Real, Acrobat). Many Flash sites are perfectly usable over dialup.

An open source vector-based graphics standard, SVG, is on the way, but it will be a long time before most browsers have it. ??

(No, I'm not a Flash designer.)

[Andilinks]

Almost two years ago I spent a lot of time extracting, decompiling, reverse engineering flash files. (http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17952&highlight=decompiling+flash)

This software (http://www.flash-decompiler.com/) works well but no matter how many flash files I decompiled I could find no predictable pattern to the nesting of files. This means that automating the process would be prohibitivly expensive and I'm sure this is why the search engines have demurred when it comes to indexing text in flash files. I don't see them indexing flash until they have perfected the results they get from ordinary text.

Flash is the future of animation on the web (http://www.linkdup.com/), but not with text if there is any need at all for the text to be indexed and searchable.

Andi

[Myra]

Flash is often a vehicle for expressing the creativity, imagination and ego of web designers.
Andi

Hah! Impeccable comic timing, even online.

...You'll notice that the most successful ecommerce sites use little flash....The site of the fashion designer or manufacturer needs to motivate the visitor to go to a store or to another site by being the coolest, so it's a different approach than retail.
Andi

I can totally understand why an industry like fashion, that's all about the look, would use flash. Also, websites pertaining to the arts: music, photography, etc.. But even then don't arts and fashion folks need to consider SEO? Google says its spiders have trouble with flash, dhtml, etc and actually suggests creating static copies of dynamic pages to compensate. I wonder how many of the flashy pages have sufficient text for spiders, or have static copies too.

Flash is probably the most advanced graphics player you can count on most web browsers having....(No, I'm not a Flash designer.)


Flash is the future of animation on the web (http://www.linkdup.com/), but not with text if there is any need at all for the text to be indexed and searchable.
Andi

Oo, great website Andi. Thanks.

Anyway, those are all good points and flash is undeniably useful at creating boffo effects, so I understand its appeal. I'm just questioning the practicality of its widespread use on non artsy sites given that google (and presumably other search engines) can gag on it and humans often gag on it.

kitchin, I'm curious why you don't, if I understand correctly, use flash in your web design. Do you work with someone who develops flash or does your company not use it at all? (Feel free not to answer; it's not really any of my business but I'm curious.)

In spite of the downsides though flash is widely used even by web designers. Not only that, it's hugely rewarded by website award sites, e.g.,
http://www.websitedesignawards.com
http://www.designfirms.org/awards/
http://www.worldbest.com/gold.htm
http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=10

(Et tu webbies?) Tho' the webbies are the most balanced of those I've seen, and award some non-flash sites, including some dang ugly ones in my view. But I digress.

Granted almost anyone can decide to give out website awards (if anyone here wants one I'll be happy to give you one). But the overwhelming trend to award flash in spite of its impracticalities and negatives just seems odd to me.

Myra

[PaulKroll]

Awards for websites, like awards for marketing in general, are "is this design cool, interesting, exciting?" Not "did this accomplish the company's or organization's goals?"

That Flash is most commonly used for advertisements, means I see almost no Flash these days: I've got AdBlock in FireFox set to nuke just about all of them, and the rest only show up if I click a button to run them. (FlashBlock is that extension's name, strangely enough. :) )

[Andilinks]

But the overwhelming trend to award flash in spite of its impracticalities and negatives just seems odd to me. It's because awards are given to encourage and reward creativity and art. Practicality in commerce creates it's own cash rewards and hardly needs a pat on the head too. One may be artful when making money but people will just laugh if you try to call it art. :)

[Andilinks]

But even then don't arts and fashion folks need to consider SEO?Is popularity an indicator of success as an artist? Is wealth and fame how we measure art?

Or full circle: every work of art is really an advertisement for itself. SEO is so very far removed from making art that artists must have agents and dealers who do their SEO. A struggling artist can wear both hats, but make no mistake these are TWO hats.

Andi

[Andilinks]

I wonder how many of the flashy pages have sufficient text for spiders, or have static copies too. The entries on these pages (http://www.andilinks.com/designers.shtm) with no description are mostly flash sites with no non-flash text.

Sites with two versions, a choice between high-speed and dial-up links on a splash or doorway page are rare, mostly older...

[Jeff]

To web designers,

I'm wondering why flash used so much because according to my scholarly research (sitting on my ass surfing the net) google can have trouble with it and people don't tend to like it.
Clients do often like it :)

It does allow you to easily go over the top. But it also allows you to do unique things. Look at sites that use bold colors or unique color schemes - some people really love them and give them awards while lots of other people will say "that's an ugly green" or "yuk I hate that orange". Is it better to have some people love it and some hate it, or to be "average" and like everyone else, follow the color wheel with nice safe complimentary colors and an all html site that no one will object to?

Google says this about that (oh god, I'm talking like Nixon):
"If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Macromedia Flash keep you from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then spiders may have trouble crawling it."
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&ctx=related

And according to this article:
"Flash animations are an obvious, yet stellar, example of what users hate in a Web site; the skip intro button is the most used button on the Internet."
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/14/79274_HNhateaboutwebsites_1.html

A lot of flash seems seems, well er, too flashy and gaudy to me, and does serve as a barrier to the content I want. I'm not dissing flash totally, I've seen sites that create amazing effects with it. And I've seen sites that use it in context to expand on their content.

But, given that google can find it problematic and it can alienate a lot of users (I'm one), why is it so widely used? Do clients frequently request flash?

Myra
I hate 80% of commercials on televesion - they are a barrier to the content I like (the program I'm trying to watch before each 3-minute block of ads interrupts me with lots of "flashy" annoyance. Yet I don't see those going anywhere anytime soon either.

I do admit myself to using flash on the web more like an ad on tv to show my things to visitors and try and impress or interest them rather than to allow interaction which is more difficult but the best. And part of the problem is that many visitors that matter to me have broadband yet some are still surfing 50x slower on dialup - can you imagine other mediums trying to create a presentation where (tv analogy) some views were seeing the show 50 to 100x slower than other visitors or waiting for a movie to load for hours stuck watching a preloader or station ID; or (book analogy) where some readers could only change pages 50 to 100x slower than other visitors?

I do find the flash ads on espn annoying however with sound - but before that people were annoyed with 468 x 60 banners. I'm afraid after people start ignoring flash something even more annoying will come (ajax things over the page for example, in-line ad-links that aren't really content, etc.)

Text alone in the wrong hands can be annoying too. So my advice - use it if you can make it effective.

It does have advantages:
1.) wildely supported by browsers
2.) if not, a small compact free and easy to download plugin
3.) loads incrementally and in the background if carefully done (not possible with all animations, but to create slideshows for example.)
4.) can scale to 100% of browser size whether visitor is viewing on a 640 x 480 ultra-compact notebook/tablet or a 1600 x 1200 monitor
5.) allows images to go beyond color/shape only for navigation elements at a fraction of the size of all-image based rollovers
6.) allows annimation of text/photo complicated layouts with a fraction of the programming time of a dhtml layout, and with no worries about different browser support

I'm sure there are lots and lots more positives.

[DogAndPony]

To web designers,

I'm wondering why flash used so much because according to my scholarly research (sitting on my ass surfing the net) google can have trouble with it and people don't tend to like it.Weeelll... That's a broad but fairly common generalization... And one that's usually based on rabid comments found on the 'Net. :wink:

Flash is a tool. Nothing more and nothing less.

There are good examples of Flash and bad ones. If there are problems, in my experience they're caused by the designer, not by the tool.Google says this about that (oh god, I'm talking like Nixon):
"If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Macromedia Flash keep you from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then spiders may have trouble crawling it."This happens when Flash is used inappropriately. A decent web designer knows when to use Flash, and when not to. If SEO is a high priority, then Flash should not be used to deliver the information that's meant to be indexed.

On the other hand, some site owners rightly don't care if a crawler can index their sites (more below).
And according to this article:
"Flash animations are an obvious, yet stellar, example of what users hate in a Web site; the skip intro button is the most used button on the Internet."Again, this is a generalization that is (or at least should be) referring to bad execution or application of Flash, not to Flash in general.

Any web designer worth their salt will know that splash pages are out of favor now, especially since they aren't favored by search engines.

Having said that, there are times when a full-page Flash splash or intro or front page is appropriate -- and welcomed by website visitors.

There are various factors that should inform a designer's decision whether to use this kind of Flash.

+ Who is the audience? Are visitors looking for/expecting an entertaining, engaging, interactive "multimedia" experience? Or are they looking for a fast, easy-to-use utilitarian source of information? If it's the former, Flash may be a much more appropriate and effective medium. If the latter, then good old HTML and its offspring are probably better.

+ The flip side of that coin is, what sort of content/message/feeling are you trying to get across? If it's important to create drama and to portay yourself/your company/the client in a creative or upscale light, then Flash gets a check in the Pros column. If your content is largely textual and needs to be heavily searchable, then HTML gets a nod.

+ Another consideration: How are the designer's Flash skills? If you're not the greatest animator or designer in the world, Flash may not be a good idea, regardless of your audience, or the sort of material you're publishing.

+ All of the above need to be weighed against the importance of SEO for the site. This is another reason to look at your audience, and where they're coming from. Are you selling to the general public? Will they be finding you through search engines almost exclusively? Pages created mostly or completely in HTML are stronger for this, and all-Flash sites don't do well.

If, on the other hand, most of the site's traffic comes from links on professional or insular community sites, or personal referrals from others in a well-defined group or industry, then the site doesn't really need high search engine ranking, and an all-Flash site may be the perfect fit.

Some case studies:

Client 1: A "design-build" company (architectural design, construction and remodeling). This client gets much of its business through referrals from happy clients, but they still get a portion of their business from web visitors who find them through Google. The client wanted their site to be rich and dynamic. So, I created a site for them that combines HTML pages with spot animations that add the energy and movement they want, while remaining unobtrusive enough not to distract visitors while looking at content.

Client 2: A production designer for movies. This client gets virtually all of his work through industry referrals (yeah, in Hollywood, it's definitely who you know, not because of snobbery but because the employers want to work with people they know and trust). He wants his site to be as stylish and dramatic as the high-budget movies he works on, but he still wants to allow people to find him via search engines. So I'm recommending that while the Flash content on his site may be more extensive than Client 1's, we should make the text in the pages HTML-based.

He'd also like to have some dissolves and such between images in his portfolio, but he wants to be able to update the images himself. In this case, I recommended passing on the (Flash) dissolves and going with an HTML gallery. While I might be able to hack together a method of creating animated GIFs in the galleries, the cost of scripting and the resulting load times would make it overkill. And downloadable Java applets are the spawn of Satan. :EG:

But using a Flash logo in the upper left that cycles subtly, and/or other spot animations for navigation is still a definite option.

Client 3: ...actually, a prospective client. This real estate agent -- referred by a colleague -- called me to ask about designing a site. She was very interested in having a slick, Flash-based website. I tried to talk her out of it. But she decided to employ a friend of hers to build the site "out of loyalty." The friend bought a Flash template and filled it with her info and images.

About a month later, this person's assistant called me and asked how much I would charge to update the property listings on the site... since it was Flash, and they didn't know how to... and since they apparently weren't doing business with the friend anymore. The assistant said he told her repeatedly not to do a Flash site. But alas... Now they're stuck with a template site that's hard to update, which is extremely SEO-belligerent (death-on-a-stick for real estate types), and which looks exactly like all the other sites that use that template.

The site looks decent, but in the end, they got what they paid for ($65 worth).

A note on search engine/index traffic: I've come to understand that a lot of people don't know how to use their web browsers. Instead of simply typing a URL into the Location bar, they may instead access every site they go to via Google or Yahoo or MSN Search, by typing the URL -- or a fragment of it, or the name of the site -- into the search field. So even if someone knows your web address, they may not arrive at your site directly... So even sites that don't need retail-style search engine traffic, they need to be at least the tiniest bit SEO-conscious. All it might take is wise titling of pages, but it needs to be taken care of...

But I digress. :confuz:

A lot of flash seems seems, well er, too flashy and gaudy to me, and does serve as a barrier to the content I want.Then it's bad Flash, or it's just used in the wrong way. It's not Flash's fault-- it's the designer's fault.I'm not dissing flash totally, I've seen sites that create amazing effects with it. And I've seen sites that use it in context to expand on their content.There ya go.But, given that google can find it problematic and it can alienate a lot of users (I'm one)Badly-made or badly-employed Flash alienates users. Well-designed, appropriately-used Flash draws visitors in and engages them. It can also perform certain tasks well that even an AJAX solution can find hard. In some situations, there's no substitute for Flash.

So, Flash doesn't alienate users... bad designers alienate users. :blah: , why is it so widely used?Mostly because, as Andi said, it's an ego boost for a lot of web-makers. Not to mention a bank account boost. :wink: Do clients frequently request flash?Lots of my clients request lots of Flash, and nearly every time, I convince them to use less than they asked for, or none at all. Sometimes it's because of cost, but it's usually due to it being the wrong thing for them to use as an all-around solution.

Flash isn't A Bad Thing^TM. It's a totally neutral thing. And bad designers can create bad HTML just as often as they can bad Flash (actually, more often).

So let's respect the tool. And diss the tools who can't use it right. :clown:

[Myra]

Weeelll... That's a broad but fairly common generalization... And one that's usually based on rabid comments found on the 'Net. :wink:


Actually I germinated that thought all on my very own.


All of the above need to be weighed against the importance of SEO for the site.
...
Some case studies:
...


Well, this much is obvious from your case studies. You have more interesting clients than I do.


... Now they're stuck with a template site that's hard to update, which is extremely SEO-belligerent...


Hah, great expression - SEO belligerent.


So let's respect the tool. And diss the tools who can't use it right. :clown:

You make many good points and your case studies are helpful.

I don't believe I ever expressed disrespect for the flash however. My thread title was "Why is flash so widely used?" not "Why does flash suck and blow at the same time?"

Myra

[DogAndPony]

You make many good points and your case studies are helpful.Thanks... I don't believe I ever expressed disrespect for the flash however. My thread title was "Why is flash so widely used?" not "Why does flash suck and blow at the same time?"Hmmm... Maybe I was confuzzled by thoughts like: But, given that google can find it problematic and it can alienate a lot of users (I'm one), why is it so widely used?

[Andilinks]

Perhaps something that is so easily misunderstood and abused by so many sucks for that reason, not because it is flawed itself.

It degrades the internet experience because it is misunderstood and abused.

Hmmm....