flash and google

[Egg Bramhill]

Remi. Stereotypes

* Don't change the size of the browser window

Agreed

* Don't use small pixel fonts

Ohhhhhh yes please, spare my eyes!

* Don't create full flash sites.

? Explain (in more detail)

[Availor]

Full flash sites are quite like a little application.
It's less tedious if you know flash. No HTML, no CSS, no PHP or whatever.

If I am to make my own portfolio website, I don't care about google search engine, so I'd rather make it a cool looking multy effects website.

[haakoo]

Flash AS can use xml/php/html (SWF8)
First screen make html(picture on it ,keywords under the pic for meta crawlers)
On this page make what the viewer can expect: best browser/view(flash)
so they can download the plugin

[remi]

I wouldn't recommend to create full Flash sites. The reasons for this are the followings:

• A HTML Web page with a little bit Flash is faster, instead of a full Flash site.
• After a relaunch, Macromedia's website was a short time a pure Flash site, but there were so much rumours about the bad performance (and therefore the lack of usability), that Macromedia changes their website back to a HTML site with some Flash parts. If you're not willing to believe this, look at the current Adobe website - why don't they use a full Flash site?
• Pure Flash sites aren't searchable (and findable) from Google, Yahoo or MSN.
• Some Flash developers are thinking, using Flash is easier - mainly because they aren't willing to learn/handle HTML+CSS with all the Cross Browser problems. But HTML knowledge is neccessary, HTML is the "bread and butter" language of the web.
• HTML opens the possibilty of including JavaScript to implement a lot of useful things (for example Dynamic HTML, AJAX, ...).
• My recommendation: Create your Website with HTML+CSS and use Flash in some parts, for example to show some animations or animated menus, but not for the whole website.

Regards,
Remi

[tomcat]

Did anybody who makes a full flash site ever read about accessibility? Or usability?

Not everyone who wants to visit a web-page does this with ie, firefox, opera or another "regular" browser. Some people have disabilities, are blind, have problems with viewing colored sites or don't have the technical eqipment with them (palm, mobile phone ...). Don't forget all the older persons which can't read letters in 5 or 6 pixels height. I'm not talking about some, but about over 40% of the internet-users!

Have you ever tried to print or save flash-sites? You can manage this with actionscript, I know, but how many designers will? Most of time you'll receive a print of a big graphic. Super!

I live in Germany and over here there's a changing to pages that follow the suggestions of the w3c with XHTML and CSS. Not nice-looking sites for some, but good-looking and accessible sites for everyone. The changing of the official sites to accessible ones over here shall be done until 2008/2009. Alternative readers like braille, voice-readers etc. should be possible as well as pure text-viewing, switchable colors for the handicaped or changing the font-size by the viewer himself.

I have made some pure-flash-sites by myself. Meanwhile there are almost always additional "classical" HTML/CSS-sites to guarantee the accessability. More work with making them (everything has to be done twice) and keeping them alive. Or - the better way - make classical sites with a little bit flash. Only for the pieces, that can be made only (or in best way) with flash.

Though I am gladly not handicaped myself (except the small fonts that I have problems to see right), please think of the others, that are. And don't refuse them to get the informations you have. Make clear, accessible sites. They can be nice-looking too - believe me!

P.S. If you are interested in this theme, search for it with google (or any other search tool) or look at wikipedia or at w3.org for the "Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)". You'll be surprised about all the subjects of the Accessibility.

[pknair]

Did anybody who makes a full flash site ever read about accessibility? Or usability?

Oh, I wholly agree. When working on sites that have to comply with the ODA (Ontario Disabilities Act), all things have to follow level 1 and 2 guidelines from the W3C Accessibility Guidelines. Pain! But thankfully the folks at Macromedia are listening:

http://www.adobe.com/resources/accessibility/flash8/

That being said, the average shmoe won't bother to make their files accessible. Poopers. But hey, this is the sort of thing that separates the best from the rest.

[remi]

Another very well known site switched from a full Flash site to a HTML site: MTV.com

Excerpt from the MTV Labs blog:
"The Flash site is gone. If you were digging that, we're sorry. We have good reason to believe that you will enjoy our content via the HTML version even more.

Beyond the obvious new look, here are a few key things about the new site that we're proud to deliver:

It's faster!
This new HTML version will allow you to get to the pages that you want more quickly. Not only has the page load time been drastically reduced, but we ditched the interstitial full-page takeover ads, too! Oh, there's still advertising on the site, but it's strategically placed so as not to overwhelm users while still being beneficial to our advertisers.

Simplified navigation!
We made the global menu easier to understand and we better organized the site, too. Pulldown menus have been designed to get you to where you want to go as easily as possible.

..."

Remi

[pcusa_webmaster]

Full flash sites are quite like a little application.
It's less tedious if you know flash. No HTML, no CSS, no PHP or whatever.

If I am to make my own portfolio website, I don't care about google search engine, so I'd rather make it a cool looking multy effects website.

Totally agree with you!

vince.

[manny2k]

If you use SWFobject correctly you can get index ok on google.

When I say correctly I mean by building the default detection page that will appear if the browser hasn’t got flash using css and all that, for example here is a site I have built using flash and what you see on the opening flash site I have reproduced in css so the keywords are relavent to the content which google will see and index.If you look at the page source you will see what i mean.

I hope that helps someone with getting their flash sites index.

[haakoo]

http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/