[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash

deke web at master.gen.in.us
Fri Apr 20 10:23:45 CDT 2001


On 19 Apr 2001, at 22:37, Michael Roberto posted a message which said:

> >It takes four minutes to find out the viaduct is a furniture sales rep.
> >It takes five minutes to find out that turbonium has a turbocharger,
> >and five valves per cylinder.
 
> The medium has nothing to do with the information design that these
> sites incorporate.  Blame the architect not the flash

It's the designer's fault for choosing Flash.
The latency and incompatibility issues, though, are Flash's
 
> Go checkout http://www.motown.com/classicmotown/frameset_2.html
> the classic motown website.  This site is well designed from
> a informational standpoint as well as design standpoint.  Kioken
> didn't a great job with this site, as they do with most of their
> projects.

Again, you point out a site that takes forever to load. In this case, it is
over five minutes. 

By the time five minutes have passed, users have hit the "back" button
and gone on to five other pages: they only spend 53 seconds per page,
according to Neilsen NetRatings:
http://209.249.142.16/nnpm/owa/NRpublicreports.usageweekly

Show me a Flash site that loads in acceptable time. Just one. Then
you can explain to me how to get users to download a Flash plugin, 
close their browser so that the plugin can be installed, and then find
their way back to your site.

And you can tell me how to install flash in all those nifty new appliances
they showed at Comdex. Not one of them supported Flash 5. And
none of them supports plugins.

> >I don't notice a whole lot of flash at eBay or google. 
 
> Flash is not the be all end all for web design.  It's a tool for
> creating media rich websites and presentations.  I think you'd
> have a hard time getting anyone to admit that either eBay and 
> google are media rich, and that either should be designed in flash.

Media rich?  On a 17" monitor and a v.90 modem?  That's like
installing a bathroom on a bicycle because motor homes have
them. If you want media-rich presentations, design for Imax
theatres - a 53" television set just doesn't cut it.

> If you have serious arguments towards the medium thats one thing,
> having arguments towards the designers is something entirely different.
> There are some things that flash designers do that I dont like.  Other
> designers I find fantastically talented in their ability to blend
> text, sound and animation.

You might admire the ability of someone who teaches cattle to stand
on their hind legs and dance. I see it as being cruel to hamburgers. 

If there were such a thing as a good Flash website, don't you think
*someone* would have posted a URL? 

deke



------------------------
 "The church is near but the road is icy; 
  the bar is far away but I will walk carefully." 
                            -- Russian Proverb




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