The pros and cons of using Flash
We have all visited websites that have caught our eye with slick animation, moving images and movies. You can get these results by using Flash animation. Using Flash can transform your website from a collection of static pages to an interesting and dynamic visual experience. Adding Flash to a website can bring your site to life, enabling people to engage with the website. In many ways using Flash animation to enhance your site can be a positive experience, but you have to be aware of the pitfalls that Flash animation can bring.
Flash is not optimized for search engine indexing. Therefore, if you have a website completely created from Flash you could have problems being found by search engines. As well as this, navigation links and animated text written in Flash can not be read by search engine spiders. Often websites designed solely using Flash can also create problems for people with sight problems as many screen readers can not read Flash. Flash can also take longer to load. If for some reason you have a slow connection speed, trying to load a full Flash site can be a nightmare.
Because of the problems highlighted with creating full Flash sites, I always recommend incorporating Flash into your website in smaller amounts. For example designing Flash banners, logos or embedded movies within your website can give your website a dynamic, modern feel. If you are going to put Flash animation on your website, make it stylish so that it stands out in a positive way. Flash can be a positive experience, but it can also be a liability if done badly. When you choose to have animation on your site be careful not to overdo things. For example, one website that I saw recently had the sound of animal noises playing, flashing animation and a slide show of poor quality pictures. The experience of visiting that site was annoying and irritating.
If the Flash animation is well crafted you can have a website that is a credit to you and your business. By adding well constructed Flash animation to a quality website you get the best of both worlds. A website that is attractive and user friendly. You also get a website that is cheaper and easier to create and edit than a full Flash website.
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