[thelist] Flash/Liquid layouts etc

Thu Feb 28 04:26:00 CST 2002

Firstly, this is my first mail to this list so bear with me if
I'm saying something that someone have said 3 days ago (I joined
2 days ago and have been lurking to get a feel for it, ok??) :)
To make a long story short: I'm swedish, living and working in
London UK, and have been working with web since -94 (in London
since -99).

Secondly, I'm not going to go into the issues of not maintaining
a consistent look to the design, hehe...from my point of view that
is just bad design, no matter what the medium is.

For the other things:

This is of course only a problem if the Flash file is not loading
text content dynamically (via for example ASP/PHP/XML).

I also think that this is one of the "bad design" solutions (as in
shoot the designer/creator, not the software). It was quite some
time ago now that I built a Flash site with static content, at least
when it comes to parts of the site that has to be dynamic (or that
can benefit from being so). We even do sites nowadays loading textual
"static" content from text files if we suspect that we, in the future,
might need to change it from static content to be database driven
since it's very easy to adapt the site afterwards if need be.

What I'm saying is that if people spent some time thinking things
through thoroughly before using Flash, bearing in mind the issues
that have been raised in here, and how the end-browser AND the
"content-editor" will interact with the things, then you should be
off alright (or come to the conclusion NOT to use Flash).

In my position at my work, ie doing Flash among other things, I see
it as my job to tell a customer when NOT to use Flash as well...AND
to tell them when they can benefit from using Flash. And yes, I'm
NOT one of those who always say "flash flash flash", even though
some of biggest/most popular projects I've been in have been using
Flash it doesn't mean that it's the right way to go for all clients.

Too many people, unfortunately, promote Flash when they shouldn't.
Too many people also do all the "errors" when it comes to Flash.

I maybe should add that just about all sites we do (Flash or not)
comes with a CMS for the customer, to edit/update content themselves.
Since dynamic Flash in reality is Flash reading some scripting language
there is no change in how the user puts in data...only the way in how
it is presented...;)

I think Flash, correctly used, can enhance user experience and reduce
file size and I know from experience that it can be as easily updated
as any other site.

/mathias

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Erika Meyer
Sent: 27 February 2002 20:54
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [thelist] Flash/Liquid layouts etc

Re: Flash vs HTML personal experiences.

I just got done walking both sides of the fence (and ouch! good thing
I'm wearing Levis!  dang that barbed wire...)

http://www.lclark.edu/~art/

The art dept wanted to build a flash site.  Their way of doing so was
to have a the graphic design instructor gather content, and a design
student put the interface together.

Because accessibility & consistency are two goals in my office
(Public Affairs & Communications) I allowed them to build their Flash
site, but took the same content and dumped it into our homemade CMS,
Trillium.  I couldn't do all the pretty CSS stuff I usually like to
do because of the way the CMS is set up.  So the HTML version is very
vanilla.

It's interesting (or maybe not) to see the two different ways the
same info is presented.

There was no attempt to maintain a consistent look to the interfaces.
There was an attempt to maintain some consistency of information, but
that failed somewhat as the art student included information we'd
decided was better left to official sources (for example class
descriptions should be part of the catalog, not repeated on every
dept site) and also due to the different presentation environments.

The biggest difference *I* have noticed is the error correction and
maintenance aspects of the two sites.  A typo in the flash site means
that the graphic design teacher has to go to the original files (with
a student) find the text, edit it, and upload it again.  It takes
days or weeks for the process to to be completed... if it is
completed at all.

With Trillium, I (or anyone with the proper password) can click a
magic button on browser window, make the corrections right there on
the page, hit submit, and move on to something else.

Ease of maintenance is crucial in a decentralized environment like a
college.  & also accessibility must be a priority.

Erika
--

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Erika Meyer
Web Communications Consultant
Lewis & Clark College
Portland, Oregon USA
Phone: 503-768-7972
http://www.lclark.edu/~emeyer/
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