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Flash site
Do you a recommend a flash website over an HTML site? Jun 25 05 12:37 pm Link Really depends on the audience you are aimed at. Currently my website is completely HTMl, I prefer not to use flash if I can help it. There is a new design in the work, with some flash elements but I want to be able to offer an HTML version of it. Myself I would not be comfy if I had to only use flash and that was it. Using a flash site Pros: -Can be visually nicer at times with animation and so on -Can have functionalities nor normally offered -Multimedia is easier to implement Cons: -Flash can be designed poorly making it a large file size, for more than needed (especially if you dont use dynamics like actionscrpt to load content only when needed) -Bandwidth can go up due to increased size -You limit certain audiences to visiting -You normally just killed off your dialup viewers -Harder for search engines and webspiders to spider your website for keywoards and such -Content not as readily updatible HTML Site: Pros : -Can be made to load very quickly -Can be updated fairly easy -Easier to implement a dynamic (php, asp, etc) site -No publicating/compiling required Cons : -Animations, audio, etc may not be as feasible to impliment -The layout and such if not done correctly could look different for various browsers There is a number of Pros and cons off the top of my head, if I were going to use flash, I'd want to reserve the content portion of it to be html only. Also in regards to the cons I listed above about flash, this is keeping in mind that most flash developer's I've seen, typically do not know much actionscript, or do not know how to load content dynamically. Most flash designers/developers I speak with, especially those comming out of the colleges around this area for some reason were never taught to be bandwidth and size conservative, so alot of these folks will end up doing a nice looking flash site, but at the size of 5 MB or larger, making it quite difficult for even broadband users to load content efficiently. Jun 25 05 02:08 pm Link I don't have a site, so I can't really give any insights other than that flash photography sites annoy me. I've seen too many photographers' sites that have been way overdesigned, causing the images to be almost an afterthought. Rant ends... Jun 25 05 08:59 pm Link hrm, far as photography + flash, I have to agree with JvR. If your website is oriented mainly towards you work, you dont want the design looking that much better than the photos. (If anything looks better than your photos you have an issue) Some people will ask me sometimes what color schemes should be used for a photography site, normally I just tell them, flash or html, keep the majority of the colors neutrals. back, white, graytones, skintones, earthtones, with maybe some brighter accents, dont want a design too extremely colorful, because you want your images to 'pop' off the page in a way. Jun 25 05 09:41 pm Link Flash is the tool of the future and has more power then most people realize. Going over board can happen in either HTML or Flash. As long as you have a vision you can do either. Remember, presentation is everything, take a look at these. http://www.ronnyknight.com/ http://www.julianwolkenstein.com.au/ http://www.sorenhald.com/ http://www.trevorleighton.com/ http://www.jmnphotography.com/photoGallery/ I have a ton more if you want to see more examples of excellent presentations by photographers. Jun 25 05 10:24 pm Link Jun 25 05 10:27 pm Link What do you think of Patrick Fraser's site? His name is at the bottom of every page. Who is that guy? Jun 26 05 02:52 am Link That guy is the guy whose photograph is at the top of every page. And I hate his site. Jun 26 05 03:00 am Link patrick frasier's site is just video of his stuff. not very interactive. this guys's site====> http://www.eccentris.com/splash.htm is the coolest, if you have a fast connection...but for some strange reason, i stumbled to another dude's website who totally copied the first guy's..including the mp3 background music and navigation squares...lame-o. wow, now i lost the link to the copycat... Posted by theda: Jun 26 05 03:17 am Link Posted by edrickguerrero photography: I concur. Jun 26 05 03:35 am Link My site is designed largely in Flash, and since it's done well I've seen no problems with it as of yet. Mostly Flash was just used to solve cross-platform/browser issues and to add some neat stuff...doing an entire site in Flash is very limiting and can be annoying since it's generally overdone. BTW: a site will only be as good as it's designer. Bad Flash is no worse than bad HTML, imho. Jun 26 05 04:43 am Link Jun 26 05 04:50 am Link Ironic how most of the flash sites listed above as good examples could just as easily be used as perfect examples of what NOT to do - AKA flashterbation. Common faults present in one or more of the above sites: 1) Site won't load at all because it sniffs for Flash version - but gets it wrong. 2) Site insists on popping up in a new browser window that then goes full screen. 3) Music instantly on. Made worse by no obvious way to turn it off. 4) Unintuative navigation. 5) Annoying clicks on each mouse event - but at least they don't use a pseudo camera shutter/winder noise. These are not faults of Flash - but of poor design. Equally, HTML based sites can suffer from similar bad design - eg any site that has a "best viewed on" warning. Jun 26 05 05:17 am Link I'll use a "designed for" on my website, while this does mean it is best for those browsers it does not mean I will let it become crap on an unsupported browser. It seems as a webdeveloper while internet explorer currently dominates the market, it is by far a good browser as alot of standard complient websites normally need work arrounds just to fix it for internet explorer. I dont design for IE, but I will at least check to make sure site features are not utterly ruined for it, often times it just requires me loading a slightly different set of styles when PHP detects the browser version being internet explorer. But like you said most sites ultimatly fail because designers fail. Its just like programming languages sure it works, but does it work well, is it robust, is it easy to understand, does it make sure not to alienate a particular audience. Until people actually smarten up and move over to Firefox, Safari, or similar engine browsers, I will continue to use work-around to get the likes of IE to work properly. Flash helps eliminate this to some degree, but problematic designers are far more noticible in the flash arena than the HTML/Serverside one. Jun 26 05 05:26 am Link Just curious about Patrick. Is he a friend of Tyler's or does he just pay to be on every single page? Jun 26 05 02:20 pm Link My site is flash.  Jun 26 05 02:31 pm Link Posted by Eric Muss-Barnes: You're joking, right??? How can it be the best photography site if you have to pass an IQ test (which I apparently failed) to get to the photos on it? Let's deconstruct my experience with his site a little bit... Jun 26 05 02:51 pm Link I thouhght that site was pretty neat, did have to figure out out tho. Far as knowing which one you been to , the boxes get a tad darker for already visted ones. There was a help button on the front flash that highlighted all the other buttons and their functions. But I do understand while it may seem neat to me, the ease of use, and size will discourage a large audience base. The guy probally already gets a pretty good clientelle, and just wanted something to show it off to te utmost capacity, even if it may discourage anyone under the 3MB/download broadband type connection. The most annoying part was looking at the indivisual image, you mouse over to get a preview of the shot to come, but that part was just about as slow as loading the full rez image. Jun 26 05 02:58 pm Link What do you guys think about the flash sites from Solomodels? http://www.solomodels.com/creativeshwcs/indexl.cfm Jun 26 05 10:01 pm Link Its ok, the bouncing back and forth and flickering is getting on my nerves tho. Jun 26 05 10:25 pm Link |
