flash and google

[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

[haakoo]

Hi Remi,

Alltough use full flash myself now and then,there are somethings better and faster to do in a simple WYSIWYG editor,but the new flash video(FLV) technic is making it more useable to implement as to the streaming of WMP
Still they use Flash but not the pages itself

Gr,Hans

[remi]

Yes, they use Flash on their site - no question. But they switched from a full Flash site (the whole page as flash) to a HTML site with some Flash inside.

Often, I see comments from Flash users, who says, that the different HTML, CSS and JavaScript handling of the Web-Browsers sucks them and so, they think it's the right way to create the whole site as a Flash site instead (the complete navigation with Flash, all contents with Flash, scrolling of long texts with Flash, ...). In my eyes, that's the wrong way. Not only, because a "real" Webdesigner must be able to understand and handle the different browsers, but also because of technical reasons (search engines, usability, accessibility, performance, ...).

Remi

[manny2k]

Hmmm

I sense a real anti flash vibe from you Remi for some reason,

because a "real" Webdesigner must be able to understand and handle the different browsers, but also because of technical reasons (search engines, usability, accessibility, performance, ...).

A damn strange quote from you that, so does that mean "real" graphics designer must understand and use every graphics package thats on the market?, no i didn't think so, or do they use what package they need for certain projects, i'm sure you will know as your more than likely a "real" graphic designer along with being a "real" webdesigner.

Full flash sites have their place on the web as do all the others.

search engines

your right flash has issues with search engines but as Egg bramhill has pointed out in other posts there are work arounds .

usability

Most flash sites ive looked at have a lot more usability than a lot of sites design by people you call "real" webdesigners.

accessibility

That issues applys to all websites, flash has accessibility too you know,although i have fallen short of it, however this is one area i'm working on, in fact the best way to make a site with good accessibility is to get a local disability group to test it before the site goes live, who better to test than the people it affects. I wonder how many of your "real" webdesigners take it to that level, not many at a guess, why?

because they Probably think theyve got that part nailed, pretty much like the guy who thinks an ALT tag saying " click here and this button will take you to the home page" on the home button is enhancing some poor blind soul's experience of the web.

performance

A well structured flash site loading content dynamically via xml external .swf's shouldnt effect performance,smaller more bandwidth chunks is the key(well i think so anyway) i've fallen short of that too in the past, but hay i'm working on that one as well.

You know i get really fed up of people that spout of negative rubbish about this, that and certain design programs, they all have there place and if applied right can give good results and a good experience to most users. Simple huh.

Right i've just slipped of my soapbox so i'm going to get back to some work

Manny2k

[Availor]

Manny2k, from my personal experience there is no "good" or "bad", it all depends on your needs. For example, if I make a website for my college studential body, I don't really care about anyone finding it in google. It would be nice but if it cost me more than 2 hours of work I won't go for it. Why? Because this site is only for the students who learn in my college and it's being advertised all over, so there's not a single person who doesn't know how to find it.

It's like if you ask "what car should I buy?" Two seats sports car are cool and fast, but you won't be able take more than 1 person with you and no baggage. Big trucks can carry many people and cargo, but you will curse the day you bought it when you drive narrow roads. So, it all depends on your needs.

When I create something I try to think as a marketer, not as a designer. Who is my customer and what is my goal.

[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/