To Flash or not to Flash

Animating your website with Flash can really set it aside from the pack. Unfortunately it can just as easily put it behind the pack as out in front. Keeping your load times down and not taxing the visitor's system is key.

A website built entirely out of Flash with just an HTML wrapper, is rarely a good idea. Search engines will penalize you heavily, if they can even index your site at all. There are certain types of sites where designing your website entirely in of Flash might be a good idea, but this is usually not the case.

Using chunks of Flash embedded in standard HTML is almost always the way to go. This allows for a website that is easy for the search engine spiders to index, yet still allows almost the same design functionality of an all Flash site.

IE now displays a security message: click to activate and use this control, whenever a user hovers over a Flash movie. This has only recently become a problem. I can't tell you how many websites that I visit suffering from this problem. To get rid of this annoying message you need to use a little piece JavaScript. See the end of this article for a link to download this fix.

Don't use Flash just because you can. If it will actually enhance your sites design and ability to convey information without annoying or distracting your visitor then go for it. Be a minimalist when deciding how much animation to use on your website. Keeping it clean is the key.

A smooth Flash movie that isn't jerky or move too fast has much less chance of annoying or distracting your visitors. Don't try to cram every scene and text element of the movie into a 10 second loop.

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.rightarticle.com

Come check out Dustin's other articles on good Flash design and get the JavaScript code and installation instructions for that annoying IE security message: click to activate and use this control

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