Posted by SpaceGirl on 10/07/07 20:28

Jonathan N. Little wrote:

> Wow! At a download rate that oscillated between 5.1-5.2kb/sec, pretty
> much the max on dialup, I got to watch an inane gyrating atom thingy for
> 2min 15sec! Then it improved to a BLACK screen with a small line of
> teeny writing for 40 secs when finally a little boy showed up! Wow again
> 3 minuets of pure heart-stopping entertainment only to be rewarded with
> with this graphic with writing that looks about 8 pixels high on *a
> curve* that I cannot change at all.... I guess the dark grey text on
> black at the bottom at a generous 10 pixels high, that I also cannot
> adjust, is supposed to help! The whole this sits in a static 700 pixels
> rectangle...oooh.
>
> Sorry, all "flash" no guts. I'm sorry but after the gee-factor wears
> off, this would be very frustrating experience if you are trying to get
> any info from such a site. It is kind of like those themes for Windows
> that at added animations, noises and fancy screensavers to your PC. Cute
> for the moment but if you actually did work on your PC, well...
>
> The problem is both you and Travis have miss the point. It is no how
> small the initial script is, (I showed how small a Perl script can be),
> but how small the end product that downloads that's important. AND
> whether or not it can be usable to the "user"!

I was trying to show to a tech demo of the sort of things that can be
done, but I guess you're unwilling to open your eyes. You've decided
that Flash is bad, and won't hear otherwise. It's very sad, really.

We live in a multimedia world. The WWW is changing every day, and we're
moving further away from the flat page metaphor for describing
information. Flash is just one technology that enables this.

Web sites are about communicating. There is no one "official" way to do
this. Something delivered via the WWW can be in whatever form works best
for your audience. I wouldn't, for example, dream of advocating Flash to
replace Google.com - it's perfectly possible (for the most) to do it,
but it's the wrong medium / wrong tool for the job.

I don't mean the following in a patronizing or mean way, but, open your
eyes; if you're a design actually spend some time using Flash. Don't dis
Flash because of your own closed-mindedness.

I'm working on a Magazine project at the moment - the magazine is Flash
based. It provides a very fluid, easy to read layout, with lots of
visual content. We're also providing an HTML view of the magazine and
XML/RSS feeds. The best technologies for job:

Flash: enables a layout just like a printed magazine
HTML: provides all of the content for people without flash, small
screens, screen readers and search engines
XML/RSS: provides content for news and blog engines

It would be stupid to rely purely on Flash. Going back to the site I
posted; it was a demonstration of the sorts of things that could be
done, not a commercial site. If it were commercial, I'd expect all of
the content to be available in some other form (regardless of legal
requirements).

I think sometimes this is more to do with people being afraid of
technology they don't understand; I remember when I first picked up
Flash and I was horrified by it. I'm NOT a programmer. The last thing I
wanted to do was to stray from PhotoShop+DreamWeaver+CSS+little bits of
JS. I used to dis Flash a lot, until I realised it was just another
fantastic tool in my box of tricks for building great web sites.

Okay, lastly. You're a narrowband user, right? Unfortunately you've been
left behind. It's a sad state, but it's how technology works - you
cannot expect technology to stand still because you have. Doesn't matter
if it's your fault that you are narrowband or otherwise - technology
will always leave you behind. There are MANY sites online now that will
not work on narrowband connections. Some of the worlds most popular
sites almost require broadband these days. An example would be something
like YouTube. Pretty much useless if you don't have Flash installed or
you only have a narrowband connection. It's the nature of its multimedia
content. We'll only see more and more like this; less content for
out-dated users. It's almost impossible to design sites that work on
everyones computers these days - when folks demand multimedia and more
and more innovative ways to describing content. You also have to ask, is
it something we should even be doing? The WWW is so utterly huge, and so
utterly international, it's a virtually impossible task. Focusing on
your audience's needs, and the capabilities of *their* technology makes
far more sense. An example would be the far east, in particular Japan,
where pretty much everyone is broadband, and almost all commercial sites
are heavily Flashed. Serve up low-media text sites there and watch your
site sink without a trace.

So, okay to conclude my ramble :)

Flash is not intrinsically good/bad.

Just because Flash is technically superior at some things doesn't mean
it should be used for everything.

Treating everyone on the WWW the same is a Bad Thing.

Accessibility is a buzzword. It shouldn't be used as an excuse not to
explore different ways of presenting your content.




--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

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