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Mistakes when using Macromedia Flash
I have used Macromedia Flash for all the wrong reasons in the
past and i would like to take some time to warn you, so you
don't have to make the same mistakes i have. Quite some time ago
now i used to recommend using full Macromedia Flash websites to
my clients all the time, and what's worst i did a good job in
talking them into it, autch..... Sorry for that if you were an
old client of mine i hope you can forgive me. But on the other
side at least i know better now, i learned from my mistakes and
i won't ever make those mistakes again.
The main reason i thought that Flash was the best thing ever
had to do with with the fact i got involved in the online Flash
community. There i saw how you could gain great status by
knowing this program very well. Also being able to create those
interesting things you can with Flash just by using some
Actionscript was amazing to me. I wanted to become a part of the
web design world and entered it from a Flash angle. I was
learning Flash Actionscript all the time, day in day out, never
thinking any further like about the importance of things like
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and making actual money from a
website. Instead i dreamed of creating those full Flash sites
jammed with animations etc, thinking that would be the greatest
thing ever, the marketing side really didn't even come to my
mind at that time. Flash Actionscript and the Flash community
was my world and you could say i was blinded by my love bigtime.
I think a lot of Actionscript users out there are still as i
was, blinded by that love.
So after having learned lots of actionscript to a level a was
sure about my skills i started to receive assignments to create
certain websites. In my blindness my answer to everything was
something like: 'Use Macromedia Flash and you will get a
beautiful custom website with smooth transitions and effects
that will impress your audience so much they will keep on coming
back and you might win some awards with it.' As you can see i
was far gone and on the border of insanity, i had my head way up
in the clouds and could only see it from my side ( the blind
love for Flash / Actionscript). I couldn't see it from the
client side of things and that's more related to marketing a
website and how to get relevant traffic to it to make some
actual money from it.
I am so glad those days are long gone and i have seen the light
regarding to when and how i should use Flash. Nowadays my
personal preference is how i setup free-webmaster-resource.com,
a CSS, PHP, MySql and Macromedia Flash combination (unless the
assignment is more of presentation like and need lots of
animation, sound and video). I used Flash a little bit in this
website, only in the header, and even then there isn't anything
moving etc, just a rollover. It just does not add to the site if
i start to make all sorts of moving stuff in my header. With a
setup like this i can also apply SEO (search engine
optimization) techniques to reach a bigger and free search
engine audience which results in a higher advertisement income.
So my personal favorite is the cross-over website and not the
full Flash website when it some to your average website thats
not like a presentation.
So when shouldn't i use Macromedia Flash?
1)You should not use Macromedia Flash in your web design
if it does not add something to your website! I mean if it does
not add something to the overall user experience then just don't
add it to your site. To give an example, it does not matter to
an average user (that must provide your income!) how good you
can use Actionscript. So please don't try to show off your
skills by coding that creepy mouse follower or those blinky
thingies all over your website. Things like that don't add to a
website at all, they rather tear it down. A professional will
notice things like that immediately and recognize you as an
amateur (not that being an amateur is bad, not at all, but this
tutorial is for people aiming a bit higher and that seek to
become more then an amateur). Users are king and Queen and we as
web designers and developers should serve them well, this is
especially difficult if you see how much little animations one
could create with Actionscript, the possibilities are endless.
By not showing your visitors all those unnecessary effects you
show them that you are thinking about how they experience your
website. And secondly your content will be much more clearly
visible and thats what its all about. I know its tempting to
setup those little effects when you first start to use Flash and
especially Actionscript, but just don't do it, you will loose
income and traffic from this 100% most definitely sure.
2)Another mistake in using Flash is if normal HTML could
easily do what you are trying to accomplish. I made those
mistakes often when starting out with Flash. An example is that
some people create a full Flash site with lets say, a title,
some text and a menu to a few static pages. When you click a
button in the menu you are taken to the other page without any
transitions, no cool flow, just bam and the next page is
visible. Its quite useless to use Flash in such a manner because
one would use Flash to create an interesting flow with some
great transitions, not for static things like that. In HTML
there are no things like transitions between pages, its purpose
is just to serve a user data without any motion and such stuff.
Making a page that acts like a HTML page does with Flash is not
good at all, it screams inexperience, and you might want to
avoid that.
3)When you have a website that contains a lot of data
don't try to use a full Flash site unless you have enough money
to setup a pay per click campaign to attract visitors . A
website needs to generate income and that's it. Using Full Flash
for big data sites will effectively hide all your hard earned
content from the search engine spiders, so you don't get the
free highly targeted search engine traffic. If you decide to use
that full Flash site you just have no way to effectively apply
SEO (search engine optimization) and thus you are missing a very
big audience that uses the search engines. Only by setting up
PPC campaigns you can make up for that but it can cost a lot of
money. Another thing to consider is that using Flash itself
causes some extra overhead, this is because instead of getting
the data with PHP from a MySql database and displaying it, you
also need to send it to Flash in a correct way and handle it
from there. If you have loads of data this could give some extra
delay in the loading time of the website.
4)If you want to generate money from your website with
some banners or ads, don't use a full Flash website. You won't
be able to easily setup affiliate links, banners or other type
of ads like you would normally.
So when should i use Macromedia Flash?
When you need to use video, audio or animation like e.g. in a
presentation or cd-rom, then Flash is the best tool out there.
Especially Macromedia Flash 8 has some awesome options regarding
to video. Or if you want to create powerful applications driven
by a database like MySql and a server side language like PHP ,
then Flash is your ultimate tool. Because with those types of
creations (applications, presentations and cdroms) don't require
you to get targeted audience from search engines. So the whole
search engine trouble with Flash doesn't count. Also if you want
to have a small effect like in my own header here
http://www.free-webmaster-resource.com Flash can provide that
easily!
Conclusion?
Macromedia Flash is an ultimate tool to use but you should not
fall too deep in love with it. Take a step back and think about
the things like: do i need lots of visitors from the search
engines for free or do i have enough money for a pay per click
campaign, do i want to setup affiliate links or other types of
banners to generate an income, do i really need animation or can
i leave it out and just serve my user what he/she came for
etc... I hope you won't make the same mistake of wanting to use
Flash for everything like i did and that you will explore the
possibilities of creating websites that search engines like and
your users like too. (For example a CSS, PHP, MySql and perhaps
some Flash). Ofcourse this only applies if you don't need to
have things like video, audio and animations to create that
ultimate user experience. Just remember one thing and that is:
you don't have to showoff your skills with all sorts of effects
nobody needs/wants to see!
About the author:
PrimeVector (Erwin Schiphouwer) is owner of a
Flash-PHP-CSS-MySql Development company in the Netherlands. His
site http://www.free-webmaster-resource.com is his big love and
is a very useful Web page design &
Web master resource for all webmasters, developers and
desginers out there.