[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Sun Apr 22 11:20:03 CDT 2001


so i went to a site today to download some free fonts i need for a 
project, but their site is strictly Flash 5... no biggie, i've got 4 
installed and that has always allowed me to use a Flash 5 site... 
that and because over a 33.6 modem, i can't be bothered to install 
it...

well, i did the install, and not only did it clearly want to close all my 
browser windows (i have 15 open right now since i'm doing work 
and research), but it wanted to take it to the next step and restart 
my machine...

so, from an anecdotal perspective, as a user who's just trying to 
get stuff done, Flash 5 has really not pleased me today, especially 
since i still can't get the fonts until i finish up enough work that i 
can reboot without having to re-open 15 browser windows and all 
the other associated hassle...

so a 1-2 minute install (as Macromedia says) for me will take 
something like 20 minutes between the download, install, and 
reboot, adn relaunching of all my other apps... that's way too much 
time out of my day to see some site that would have been much 
more useful as plain HTML anyway, and that i'll only use for 5 
minutes (the Flash on that site doesn't do anything HTML couldn't 
do)...

after building hundreds of sites, some Flash, most HTML, i can tell 
you that the greatest problems i have are with the Flash sites... 
clients always want to know why it runs so slow on their old 
machines, why the fonts are so small in their tiny windows, why 
their back buttons don't work, etc... yes, you can accuse me of 
being a bad Flash developer, but for a site that is a 12k Flash 
movie, that would have been better off as HTML, there is no reason 
i should make some poor punk on an old 486 or low-end Pentium 
chunk his way through content that didn't warrant the experience...

as always, it's about the users... 

and as a user, sites like the turbonium site do nothing for me, but 
they at least don't offend me... they're wonderful for that twitchy 
genX punk who needs movement to hold his attention, but i just 
want information fast, easy, and in any damn browser on any damn 
machine i choose...

now if more Flash developers actually *cared* about those of us 
who hate surfing through long-animated menus, weird audio, lack of 
accessibility etc, i'd love it...  as it is, i hope everyone on this 
thread has read a recent set of articles on the evolt.org site:

Developing User-Friendly Flash Content
http://evolt.org/article/flash/4090/9601/index.html

Flash Interface Usability
http://evolt.org/article/flash/4090/8968/index.html





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