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Flash’s Time Has Come and Gone

Macromedia Flash-based Web sites were all the rage since the technology’s introduction in the late 1990s. Thank God that’s over. Here’s why.

The client-agency relationship is an interesting one. I get up in the morning in order to do cool stuff on the Web, leveraging my always-growing body of technical and marketing knowledge. But I’m also getting up in order to make enough money to support my lovely wife and daughter. So when it comes to deciding whether to take on work that furthers my knowledge, or do something that keeps me working, it’s almost always the latter decision that I’m going to take.

Of late I’ve had more than one client ask for Flash-based Web sites. Flash is the technology that provides ultra-cool animated effects, and when used properly, and in the correct context, delivers an unforgetable experience on the Web.

But Flash is not a perfect technology. In fact, it’s more often a burden than solution. Here’s why:

It’s expensive. Flash development is similar to developing for video; it requires specialized skill and extensive planning before you can lay down the first animated frame. I don’t do Flash myself; it’s something I’ve resolutely kept out of my skill set intentionally. My “Flash Guy”, Mark, is really good at what he does, and I’m happy to call on him when needed. But clients are often surprised at how much this kind of work costs. That’s because it’s very labour intensive.
It’s inflexible. Once complete, it’s insanely difficult to make adjustments. Again, think of video. After a movie has been shot, if you want to add more, you have to call back all the actors and the sets, film the new scenes and then re-edit the whole movie to get the new stuff in. With Flash it’s a similar scenario. Clients who want Flash but expect to update on a regular basis are, again, surprised that it’s so expensive and time-consuming.
It’s annoying. Flash sites, done right, are really cool when you first view them. But for an honest, hard-working Web site, you should be counting on your visitors to return. And when they do, again and again, you’ll find they get really fed up with the Flash effects. Time to load is significantly longer, and those neato transition effects between pages, so shiny when first done, begin to wear on repeated use.

Ultimately, I can only recommend Flash to clients for two purposes: highly interactive online experiences such as training applications, or highly interactive online experiences such as short-term marketing efforts (think of splashy micro-sites for a national brands’ contests, etc.).

There are alternatives to Flash to provide increased interactivity without sacrificing flexibility or user fatigue. New technologies like Dynamic HTML allow us to animate objects on screen. But even more exciting are programming technologies that fall under the term “AJAX” — Asynchronous Javascript and XML — that allow for on-the-fly exchanges of information between the user and the server. Think of Web applications like Google Maps, which updates map data as you drag the map around. The toolsets that allow us to provide such dynamic experiences are becoming more and more available. And this is the kind of interactivity that Flash can’t come close to touching.

So Flash? Good riddance! In the coming months our applications are going to be dynamic in great new ways. Stay tuned.