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Posted on Monday 17th of March 2008 at 14:36 in Web Development

Why you shouldn't use Flash to build an entire website

I recently stumbled across an article entitled why your website sucks and though it was worthwhile passing comment on the whole situation; both as an experienced Internet user, professional web developer and usability enthusiast.

The article in question on glyphobet.net is related to this flash based website.  This particular Flash website is a nice effort in aesthetics; making a Wordpress-esque blog entirely in Flash is an interesting idea but it's really more of a demonstration than a pratical solution.  Entirely Flash websites are bad if you're a blogger and I wouldn't recommend them for other purposes either...  Let me explain.

Good sides of Flash websites
The good thing about having a website made in Flash is that it'll work identically across all browsers (provided they have the right version of Flash); this is something that is problematic in conventional XHTML and CSS.  Once the Flash is embedded into the page you should see identical behaviour irrespective of the browser.  You can also use non-web-safe fonts because the Flash movie embeds font data with it (so you're not limited to the same boring combinations).

SEO and Accessibility
Search engine optimisation and accessibility go hand in hand; accessibility is basically how well various browsers (including non-visual ones) interpret your website and it just so happens that search engine spiders are non-visual browsers (well, for all intents and purposes).  Unfortunately an entirely Flash website requires a Flash to be installed for your content to appear; obviously Googlebot doesn't have Flash so it'll have problems indexing your website.

Therefore unless you've got a non-flash version of your website you'll suffer with search engine listings and lack of accessibility.  You *can* make Flash more accessible but it's certainly more problematic than doing so with XHTML/CSS.  SEO and accessibility are my main gripes with 100% Flash implementations.

Things you can do in Flash vs. XHTML/CSS/JS
Sure you can do nice animated headers using Flash but most of these are worryingly awful and detract from the real content.  Banner/widgets like those found on Tradedoubler are very cool but probably achievable in Javascript with frameworks like JQuery, Mootools and Scriptaculous readily available and easy to use.  

Use Flash for widgets and composite webapps but don't build an entire website in it.  Certainly not if you're interested in SEO and accessibility (as all bloggers should be).  I just thought I'd give my $0.02 on the topic.

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Comments

Showing most recent 4 of 4 comments

I heartily agree with you Steve. Even as a devout Flash zealot I think it’s the wrong technology for a site concerned with mostly text-based content. It adds nothing and sacrifices a lot in terms of usability, accessibility and search engine positioning.

That said, flash can be used to enhance a blog site in all sorts of interesting ways. One excellent use of Flash I saw a while back was nothing short of genius. A small SWF was embedded with a ’play’ button by each post. When the visitor clicks, the post’s text content is sent to a remote server to be returned as an MP3 which is then played to the user.

But yes, Flash is best left to serve rich content like streaming audio, video, games, interactive dashboards and product configurators (when designed properly).

Concerning all the javascript buzz, wherever AJAX is used for more than non-trivial applications, Flash will always fare better. The web is a document based environment. Flash sidesteps this model by providing a better programming language, consistent display output, robust server interaction, a decent security model etc etc. No matter how much I wish that the browser could do more on its own, the reality is that all the AJAX stuff is an elegant hack - like a popup book - a lot of work to produce some nice effects but there’s no getting away from something that’s still essentially document based.
Stephen Beattie
Flash is excellent for componants or having something so different to a website that it isn’t possible in XHTML, JS, CSS. It’s excellent for remote connections, 3d work, video players etc.

My views of Flash are not outdated; it’s a basic question of accessibly and standards complience. If you’re going to build a 100% flash site then you need a text-only version too. People get sued over accessibility...
Seopher (too lazy to login)
Get over it. Recognize that your understanding of flash technologies is outdated, and their are times when I would completely disagree, and say that full flash sites most certainly do have their place and it’s time the web standards crew got over their tantrums, and notice most the issues raised above have been solved.

Secondly, the CONTEMPOZINE site above is absolutely dull.
I hate stores especially that use flash. For instance, Converse’s site is all in flash. I tought we ad gotten past the time where people were still fascinated with the cool factor of having or using flash. I think that so many people are used to regular pages that they can navigate quickly, it does not make sense to use flash.

Also, usually flash sites have their own unique navigation conventions which forces users to figure out what is going on.

www.CONTEMPOZINE.com - mens dress shoe designers

contempozine