Here’s an article that I wrote a while ago.. This still hold very true for today’s websites…

Flash, The good, the bad and the just plain useless!

Author: R. Samples / April 2006

A few years ago, webmasters all over the world discovered software programs like macromedia and a very easy to use counterpart called Swish.  This enabled web designers with limited ability to create some impressive “Flash Movies” specifically for web sites.

The craze was on and everyone wanted a “Cool” website and having that ”Wow” factor when you come to the landing/home page of a website was sold as “Impressing the Visitor/Customer” and instilling in them a sense of confidence in your products. (As my dad would say, “sounds like a bunch of hooey to me”)

What many of the website owners realized quickly was that they were spending extra money for flash, just to create another obstacle for the visitor to view your content. Statistics were piling up rather quickly that the bounce rate for flash intro pages was becoming staggering.

One of my customers that was using a flash intro page soon found out after a customer called him to let him know that he referred a friend to his website, but that referred person did not want to wait for the flash to load and left and bought the service elsewhere.  He said I paid $200 for a flash intro just to lose a $600 sale. He also stated that he wondered how many other potential sales were lost because of the flash program.

Even today, with broadband access overtaking dial-up access providers, there is no guarantee that on the day that a potential customer comes to your site, that their broadband is working at full capacity. It just simply depends on the hour of the day and how many users are on your broadband system at one time whether your broadband is truly fast or acting like dialup.

I don’t know about you but when I am browsing the Internet to find a product or service, I could care less about the flash intro. I want immediate access to the website and it’s content. I do care that the site looks professional, I do care that it is attractive as we are all trained to buy the clean crisp looking box on the shelf… If the site looks amateurish, then I just move on as I think what they have to offer may not be real or reliable.

One LAST BIG CONCERN is that if you are trying to obtain business from the search engines, having a Flash intro page is DEATH.  The search engines simply cannot access the information of a flash movie. So they just bounce right off your website and move on to the next website. If you don’t care about people finding your website on the Internet and only wish to advertise/market offline via yellow pages etc. then that’s fine.

Flash has it’s place… a little here or there in a page other than the “Landing/Home page is fine and is probably more appropriate.

Don’t let your view of wanting a cool flash to impress, get in the way of your customers intentions to find a product or service from you.

Richard Samples has been in the web and graphic design business since 1997 and owns Discovery Towers Multimedia in Sacramento, California. Feel free to visit his website at http://www.discoverytowers.com or email him at rs@discoverytowers.com