Flash is a very nice and innovative tool to draw animations and create interactive websites. Have you ever thought about why you should not use flash intro in your website? Read this article to find out more.
Should Flash be used as a website intro?
Why do we need flash intros? Is it really important to embed a flash intro on a website’s homepage? Does it serve any purpose? What are the disadvantages of flash on websites? These are some of the tough questions that you must answer when designing a website.
There are several flash based websites out there, and only a few of them could justify their reason for using flash intros. In other words, only few of them served the right purpose. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of using a Flash based intro on your website, while taking a look at the disadvantages of Flash on websites.
Disadvantages of Flash on Websites
Flash increases the size of the homepage
One of the major disadvantages of flash on websites is that they increase the overall size of the home page. As a result, the loading time of the home page increases, which in turn affects the overall performance of the website. Since Flash is composed of movies and images, the actual size of the flash file (.swf) increases. Many users will not wait long for a page to load.
Also, embedding sound or music files sometimes creates a negative impression on the visitor which forces the visitor toleave the web page. Google suggests that a home page should have the smallest possible size that will allow the visitor to open a website using a 56 Kbps modem.
Search Engine Optimization
Another major disadvantage with using Flash, is that search engines are unable to index your website. Since the spiders cannot crawl images or animated files; the text embedded on the animation is also not crawled. As a result, your website may have lesser results in a search engine indexing based on how many pages of the website are developed using flash.
However, Google has introduced a new mechanism by which the search engine can index text content present in flash, but they do not guarantee its success. The best way is to make copies of static content and place it along with your original website to ensure proper indexing of your website.
Purpose
People tend to use flash intros in their website, but they are not clear with the purpose of its use. Many people want to use Flash because they want the website to look different from others, but this alone is not good enough reason to use the intro. Determine your purpose and try to use flash only in a portion of the website. This way you can make your website more attractive and user friendly.
Advantages of Flash on Websites
Flash Adds Interactivity to Websites
Flash is a very nice and attractive tool that allows a designer to create animations, interactive movies, interactive sessions, etc. Despite its disadvantages, people tend to use Flash just because it is attractive. It is easy for most people to learn. The element of interactivity is highly desired in web design today.
Alternative to Flash Intro
Recently, a new trend has come into existence, whereby, instead of using the flash intro, web developers are embedding flash in the header part either as full flash headers or partial flash headers. The major benefit is that the customer's requirement of using flash or animation in his/her website is fulfilled and also the disadvantages of using the flash intro are not applicable here. For more information on what exactly I am trying to explain, you check the following websites.
http://www.z-finance.com/index.php
(This website has a full flash header)
http://www.eurekaexhibits.com/
(A very nice website to look at… It has a beautifully designed flash navigation menu.)
http://www.lenderscompete.co.uk/
(This website is an example of a partial header.)
Conclusion
It will depend on the website's purpose and the intended audience as to whether or not it is a good idea to use a Flash intro on your website. In most cases, it's more trouble than it's worth, but all in all, it is your decision.