Flash Sells! (Web Standards?)

April 22, 2004 | 26 Comments

It’s a fact. It’s sexy (especially when done well) and much like S.E.X. — it sells and sells and sells. People looovvve Flash! They LOVE it. So much so that all sense goes right out of their heads when they see it.

Want to win awards? Use Flash! Want to impress the boss? It’s, dun dun da! Flash, to the rescue! Need to get laid? Need a new car? Need money? Flash! Flash! Flash!

Hell (pun fully intended), Flash is even selling religion now!

So, my dear Web standards friends, why not use Flash to sell CSS? Or to sell usability? Hey it’s just an idea. But let’s think about this.

I use Flash. I design and develop with CSS and for Web standards. There is a little bit of Flash on just about every page of my site. Many people have e-mailed my to say how much they love the Song of The Week player and how it adds to the experience of Asterisk*.

Those who don’t care can generally just ignore it. It’s an example of how Flash can be used in an unobtrusive way to enhance a site. A little Flash can go a long way!

(And a lot can kill your sites, but I digress.)

Look at my DKR Productions site (which is horribly out-of-date) and you’ll notice very prominent use of Flash. It’s valid XHTML 1.0 Strict. Here is a CSS, tableless design with Flash — all working together.

Not convinced. Look at The PGA Championship site. That’s a great example of Flash and CSS working together. Sure, it doesn’t validate, but its heart is in the right place. I use this site all the time to illustrate the best of Web design.

I all to often find Web designers talking about Flash and Web standards as being mutually exclusive and this isn’t the case. Sure there are thousands of examples of how not to use Flash, but if you look hard enough you can find examples of Flash that really showcase the best of Web standards, CSS and Web best practices.

Know of any great Flash / CSS / Web standards based sites? Got an idea on how to use Flash for the greater good? Think I’m off my rocker? Let’s discuss.

Filed under: Flash

Comments

1. patrick said:

We’re trying with http://guythorntondesign.com/ – the win for Flash here was a more refined transition effect.

Posted on April 22, 2004 01:56 PM | #

2. Dave S. said:

brightcreative.com

…oh, wait, it’s not launched yet. But when it does.

Posted on April 22, 2004 02:39 PM | #

3. Keith said:

Oh, oh, I wanna see! Maybe a sneaky preview? Just pour moi? I promise not to tell. ;)

I’m quite sure it’ll be great, can’t wait to see what you’ve got cookin’ Dave!

Posted on April 22, 2004 02:49 PM | #

4. Dave S. said:

Sure Keith.

www.2advanced.com – it’s my beta site. Shh, don’t tell anybody, I’m not sure if I’ll keep it yet.

Posted on April 22, 2004 03:03 PM | #

5. Jason Santa Maria said:

I use a bit on my site on the home for the “Weekly Photography” and in the Portfolio and Photography sections. But its not all super animated flashy flashy. I just wanted something subtle and reusable.

Let’s not forget Mr. Inman’s site. Beautiful usage of Flash with a good head on Standards.

Posted on April 22, 2004 03:09 PM | #

6. Keith said:

Dave – ha. ha. ha.

Jason – I can’t believe I missed the whole IFR thing on Inman’s site!

It just goes to show how easy it is to miss something when you’re busy. That’s cool stuff – as is your photography bit. I’d seen that, but just assumed it was simple HTML.

Nicely done and thanks for keeping my informed!

Posted on April 22, 2004 03:24 PM | #

7. Ethan said:

There is, of course, The Way of the Master. Doesn’t get much “greater good” than that.

Just…wow. ;)

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:01 PM | #

8. Jason Santa Maria said:

Yeah, its subtle usage… but a great help for file management. That is just one swf being reused over and over in the port and photo sections.

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:17 PM | #

9. Keith said:

Ethan – you must have missed my reference to that in the post! ;)

Jason– That is one of the really good things about Flash. You probably use it in much the same way I use my Song of The Week Player. All I do is drop and mp3 in a folder, make a small text change and boom! Streaming audio.

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:28 PM | #

10. Alex said:

Well said, Keith.

Although what your argument is true, I’ve always had something agaisnt flash. Not sure why…

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:32 PM | #

11. Jason Santa Maria said:

Exactly my good man! My files are super lightweight and dynamic. I didn’t want to get hung up on animating anythign because it didn’t need it. It just need to be functional and extendible.

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:33 PM | #

12. Ryan Brill said:

Really, Dave? Flash on Bright Creative? That’ll be something to look for.

In my opinion, Flash is one of those things that is rarly used right. Flash can be very cool, if used in moderation, but is often overdone. One of these days I’ll dig in and use it for something, though…

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:36 PM | #

13. JP said:

I’ve been thinking about getting into Flash, but now this post has convinced me to take the plunge. (Okay, Dominey’s sites helped push me along.)

Keith, do you know of any good sites or books for learning more about Flash and Actionscript?

Posted on April 22, 2004 05:59 PM | #

14. Jason Santa Maria said:

It begins and practically ends with Colin Moock’s Actionscript: A Definitive Guide. But there are some other good ones like Brendan Dawes’ Drag Slide Fade: Actionscript for designers, simple and easy to understand… very powerful stuff as well.

Posted on April 22, 2004 06:15 PM | #

15. Stephen said:

Gotta represent!

http://www.ufl.edu/ newly redesigned.

And yes, flash sells anything. I’ve been playing around with it for a while with the odd creative job thrown in, but that xml-managed image view sold me. Buying a book or two over the weekend. ;)

Posted on April 23, 2004 12:39 AM | #

16. Mike P said:

Well said Keith, and so true.

We often steer clients who demand flash towards a ‘smart use’ kind-of philosophy.

Make it purposeful and useful, and you can have fashion and function!

Posted on April 23, 2004 12:42 AM | #

17. Jim Dabell said:

Flash is so overwhelmingly misused that I’ve installed Firefox’s Flash-blocker extension. It may well be that you’ve found somewhere where Flash is appropriate and adds to the experience, but all I will see is an ugly white square with red text in. And I’m quite happy with the trade-off of not seeing the 99% crud and 1% decent content that Flash brings.

Posted on April 23, 2004 05:14 AM | #

18. Ethan said:

[snip]

Ethan — you must have missed my reference to that in the post! ;)

[/snip]

So I did. Damn, I need coffee.

Posted on April 23, 2004 06:13 AM | #

19. Obelix said:

Flash like CSS is just a means to an end. The end being communicating an experience, a message.

As a designer/programmer one cannot afford to shun a particular technology because of some perceived infraction to good taste. They are all part of our toolset and they all have a place on our site.

There are tons of flash sites out there which show the promise of that technology whether the site is 100% in flash or 2%.

Lets not be so closed-minded, who knows in the future CSS might be relegated to the same place, as a new more *standard* language emerges.

Posted on April 23, 2004 06:29 AM | #

20. gleek said:

a lot of the posts here have great examples of how flash can be used subtly to enhance user experience.. but i can honestly say that i don’t like flash one bit. every client that wants flash wants some stupid flash intro with “jazzy” animations (when we all know that users click straight past it to get to the goods.) if i have to do one more flash intro this year, i will surely boot.

does anyone know of some good write-up/information on the “smart-use” of flash? i’d be willing to keep doing flash if i could use it smartly.. otherwise, i’m inclined to tell my clients “no”.

Posted on April 23, 2004 08:21 AM | #

21. Scrivs said:

These guys nail it with their header. Although not to sure about using Flash for navigation.

Posted on April 23, 2004 10:38 AM | #

22. Visceraman1 said:

I’m sure we can all point to Flashsites that are well done, incredibly detailed, the amazing shit. While I give the designers ample credit for the detail, the scripting etc., there are generally just too many little animations preventing me from seeing what I want to see, the actual content. Additionally too much time is spent on design rather than actual content. At some point I think the corporate world will move away from the lengthy Flash intros, loud button sounds and forced music, and towards the “smart Flash MX purposes”. One must simply be patient, let this run its course and be done with it. There wil always be a few stragglers, running to catch the bandwagon, and they too will disappear.

Of course by then, CSS will have achieved world domination.

Posted on April 23, 2004 10:47 PM | #

23. kasey said:

As a user only – I’m not a web designer – I experience Flash as irritating and distracting. I too have a Flash-blocker extension.

Sorry!

Posted on July 18, 2004 11:35 AM | #

24. Jason Liske said:

I know this is an old post, but relating to flash and its use in harmony with css and html, what do you think of FIs forvehicles.com work? here is a fulll flash page that functions as an html site with database integration. What are they sacrificing, what do they gain?

ETC point of departure.

Posted on March 29, 2005 01:09 AM | #