[thelist] Please tell me why I hate Flash

[Michael Roberto]

>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.

>If you didn't have to rely on plugins, if Flash weren't so doggoned
>slow to load, *then* you might argue that Flash is a very attractive
>tool to detract users from noticing that you haven't gotten around
>to making your site useful, I suppose.

Yet again, the flash player has nothing to do with the information
design and making a site useful.  Last time i opened Cold Fusion
Studio it didn't automatically start writing great cold fusion code.
Its up to the programmer to do the work and make the site useful.

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.

>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.

>You suppose it's because those folks have a clear vision of what 
>they are trying to accomplish with their websites, and don't want 
>Flash presentations to divert users from actually *entering* their 
>websites?

No, i suppose its because these folks want quick loading text.
Having a clear vision of what they are trying to accomplish has
absolutely nothing to do with flash.  

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.

Mike