INFORMATION ABOUT FLASH

What is Flash?

Some websites have video-like text effects and animations on their website that seem to load in a very short amount of time. This effect is most likely created using Flash, a multimedia platform developed by Macromedia. Depending on target audience you may be able to judge whether using Flash will be beneficial, since there are disadvantages in using Flash. It's not recommended to use Flash on any fundamental part of your website.

What are the disadvantages of using Flash?

If Flash controls a major part of your website you can run into the following problems.

• There are a few disadvantages of using flash. Firstly a 3rd party plug-in is required to be downloaded from the Macromedia site, this takes about 1 minute on a 56k modem and once downloaded the user will be able to view all sites across the internet that have Flash in them. The good news is over 95% of users already have the flash plug-in and all of the latest web browsers come with the plug-in already installed.
• Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista etc cannot index Flash files have difficulty following Flash files, this means your site will probably not get ranked very highly on Google. At present Google can just about read some text and follow some links in Flash files.
• Websites developed exclusively in Flash will never have a good search engine ranking.
• If you want your site to be search engine friendly and user friendly, it is best to use Flash sparingly throughout the website.
• Some people don't have the required Flash plug-in installed on their browser for whatever reason. The estimated number of users that can view Flash is 97.4%.
• Flash files can be quite large and take time to download particularly on a dial-up connection.
• Flash has caused major problems to people with disabilities, making it more difficult to enlarge text and use screen readers.
• It simply annoys many people - particularly when it's used in places it doesn't add real benefit to the website.
• It is recommended you should only use Flash when it is not possible to create the desired effect using standard methods.
• Flash is also not as easy to edit as a normal site. Flash files can be edited using Macromedia flash which is not easy for a person without training in Flash. However Flash has the capability to read information from a database but is still very restrictive on what you can and can't edit.
• Websites developed exclusively in Flash requires more time to code and therefore is more costly.