World Eater and Avolonian if the parents of the children killed at Columbine expressed to you their grief, would you offer the fact that a modern rifle is a brilliantly designed and extremely useful tool in the right hands as an answer?
No? Well think about that and your “answer” to people’s anger about Flash. Then realise how far your head is in the sand.
Yeah, Evil should have written, “Flash web designers, ignorant PHBs, and stupid people like Flash. Nobody else does.” Now that’s accurate! 
I hate Flash, but that’s probably a slightly strained analogy. No one used Flash to kill my non-existant children, ya know?
But if I did have children, I’d have to think about the children, and worry that they might be exposed to Flash. We’d have to have a talk about the dangers of Flash, and that could lead to uncomfortable questions about whether I ever used Flash. So I’m glad I don’t have children.
And I still hate Flash.
Precisely right. This attitude is embodied in this quote:
How ignoring user feedback and dictating what is “cool” is improving the user experience is beyond me. Those who think flash is wicked-cool would be well served to consider that the argument here has been divided almost entirely along the lines of users and designers.
The web is about presenting content in an accessible manner. A medium which effectively disables searching in the page, browser navigation, linking, bookmarking, saving pages for offline browsing, etc. etc. etc. is a Bad Thing, no matter how many cosmetic touches it trivialises.
I would hazard the opinion that our Tech Heads suffer from something akin to the Engineer’s disease.
Technical virtousity, dearly acquired, becomes it’s own object, leading to over design and a certain degree of contempt for the uninitiated end user.
Understandable but unproductive. What “enhances” the user experience is best determined by the market. There are clearly some uses for Flash and other multimedia in certain limited contexts.
However, they are limited, and people such as myself - as an investor, as a business user, and as a fairly intensive internet user on a private basis - generally want seamless performance based on (a) delivery of content without pain (b) wihtout being obliged to ‘upgrade’ or ‘enhance’ ourselves for the purpose of a website. As such, in most applications, e.g. corporate websites, information delivery websites, straight HTML with some limited enhancements where absolutely needed, best serve the purpose.
Even for multimedia oriented applications, the savvy marketeer should generally look for the largest possible audience given the product. Again, that dictates putting only the most minimal (again context) demands on the end user.
In a competitive world of choice, inconvenience means the user opts out, that means lost business.
I recently finished an analysis of a regional investment from the Dot Com era that the backers of my current efforts had engaged in. $25 million into a beautiful B2B endeavor. But one that assumed (a) high levels of user enablement (b) users – that is the clients – would swiftly change THEIR habits to meet the cool and wonderous capabilities of the new era. Solutions, yes, solutoins enhancing their experience and productivity…
Result: $25 million write off.
The Designer is not King.
The Consumer is King.
N.B. The prior commentary should not be construed as a comment on any existing technology efforts in the region nor a formal analysis.
Yes.
No.
Care to prove this?
People are still whining over this?
yawn
Ignoring the needs of users is rampant in the tech industry. Too often, the ‘customer’ is the guy building the application, who builds it for his own amusement, or to impress other developers on the team.
I fight this fight daily. I’m the head of the UI team for a division of the largest tech company in the world, and our own products suffer greatly. We have java applets where they don’t belong, ‘cool’ features in our products that no one uses (but which have to be documented and supported at our cost), and many, many features that DO impress people who see computers as ‘fun’ and an end unto themselves, but which just annoy people who are just trying to get their jobs done.
A perfect example is that brokensaints web site mentioned above. Just the home page alone violates a half-dozen usability guidelines - so much so that I gave up on even trying to enter the site.
Now, no doubt people who like ‘cool’ web sites, or people who see web browsing as a game, will find that site fun. To me, having to go on a quest for the user interface is NOT fun. It’s bloody annoying. First, I got TWO pop-up windows, where the correct answer is NONE. I closed them both and tried to enter the main site. Unfortunately, there was nothing to tell me what I should click. There was a graphic with four heads. Okay, I thought - that’s four different hotspots that I can click to do four different things. Plus, a circle in the middle. Okay, I’m thinking the circle probably takes me to the main page, and the heads probably take me directly to various sub-sites. So I clicked on the circle - and got the same two popup windows. Grr. So I closed the two popups again, and clicked on one of the heads. Same popups.
At that point, I left the site. I will not go back. I have no interest in playing games just to buy whatever you are trying to sell me. I don’t care how pretty the site is, or how clever it is. I’m done with it.
Then there was this comment from erislover:
First of all, both of those graphic sizes are far too big. Our corporate guidelines specify a maximum size of any individual web page of 50K. If you make a page that is bigger, you’re going to have to apply for approval from our UI guys. And they’re going to want to see a damned good reason. Mind you, this is 50K for the ENTIRE PAGE. A single graphic of 79K would almost always been deemed unacceptable.
Second, why in the world do we need an animated birthday cake? I can think of one good reason: On one of those web birthday cards, where the animation itself IS the content. But if that web page is trying to get across any other information at all, your animation is going to keep drawing the eye away from the content and will make the page harder to use than it otherwise would be. Our entire corporate web site consists of thousands of pages, and I can’t think of a single animation on any of them.
Interaction design means thinking about what your users are trying to accomplish, and providing the tools to allow them to accomplish their goals with maximum efficiency. You must consider not just things like their bandwidth and which browser they are using, but their entire working environment (for example, the fact that many people browse late at night or with music playing - ruling out casual use of sound).
Little things matter on a web site. I’ve done usability studies and found that elimination of a single extra click can cause a 25% reduction in abandoned web sessions. Things like moving the most commonly chosen option to the top of a link of lists can result in huge gains.
Many web designers have no clue just how easy it is to lose web users. The internet is rich in content. There are millions of places to go to. Leaving your site is trivially easy, while getting people to come there in the first place is very hard. If you care at all about your users, you’ll spend your design efforts trying to please THEM, and not yourself.
Flash has its uses. Flash games are a good example. Flash cartoons are another. Animated walkarounds, real estate walkthroughs, etc. In all of these cases, the content itself dictates the need for a tool that can display animations.
If the content doesn’t require it, don’t clutter up your web page with useless animations and chrome.
(sniff) This is so touching! I agreed with with absolutely everything Collounsbury and Sam Stone said in this thread!
“Enhancing the user experience” and “2D and 3D graphics” do not belong in the same sentence when you are talking about business sites. I want to pop in, get the info I need, and pop out. And having to print out–ON PAPER!–a page because I can’t forward a proper link to the purchasing guy is nonsense and leads to lost sales for the company that committed that sin.
Well, as a budding web designer, this is astonishing. I <hate>, I repeat, <hate> badly designed sites. And ones that load <forever>. And ones with noises. And when I can’t open the link in a new window. Extremely irritating. However, that’s simply bad designing, not Flash itself. Also, Flash PGNs are, for anyone who has used them, not as compressed as GIFs. I thought they were, honestly, until I tried loading the page I was working on. Thankfully, I always test things before I prance them onto my public site. I, also, have a 56k modem… and am well aware of the fact that other users do not have a fast modem… and all designers I know are aware of this, and treat sites with that in mind.
Therefore; don’t hate Flash. Or JavaScript. Hate the fucking nitwit designers who don’t know what they’re doing. Can’t be said enough.
How is navigation with Flash difficult, though? It works just like HTML does. Assuming you have Flash installed… what the problem? I mean, click the button. >o.O< When did that become a ‘problem’? Perhaps I’m just naive on the subject, I tend to steer clear of overly shiny sites. Even Microsoft’s site irks me. Obviously this thread is about done, but as a designer myself, I’m curious as to what the actual problem is, so I can avoid it and learn to be user friendly.
Oh, and also; FYI, most of JavaScripts more common events, (aka, onMouseOver, onClick, etc), are also available with DHTML (Dynamic HTML). While DHTML is basically mixed JavaScript with HTML, it’s slightly less complicated in syntax.
NO POPUPS. Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever. Ick. holds up a cross I’m fully with the OP on the popups, and overly shiny-ness.
Ask yourself these questions:
[ul]
[li]If I navigate within your flash plugin, and then save it to my favorites, will I be able to return to the same place?[/li][li]If I use extra-large fonts on my computer because my eyes are bad, will your flash application increase font size?[/li][li]If I want to save the web page to my local drive so I can read it when offline, say on the plane to a business meeting, will your flash site support that?[/li][li]Can I copy a url and mail it to someone, and have them click on it and see exactly what I’m seeing, or is the only option to take them to the opening page of the flash animation?[/li][/ul]
Etc.
Just be aware that you are giving up a lot when you use flash.
Er… bookmark settings are set by the designer, not by Flash, at least that I’m aware of. Could be wrong, though. I don’t see logic in using a Flash plugin for the full site; it seems redundant to me, so no worries about that. Fonts, obviously. Same thing with saving the file offline… the thing with that is it’s not a Flash thing. It’s a webscript thing. PHP does it. Any embedded language, is going to cause that.
Will do. But I don’t see what exactly I’m giving up, as long as I’m a good designer, and that applies to every web language.
Anything else?
iydkiwt, if you never use a single sound, and let me keep using my back button to move from page to page in the site, I probably won’t even realize I’m stuck dealing with Flash.
However, given the choice between a Flash page and an HTML page, with the same information, no matter how ugly the HTML, I’ll always eschew the Flash page in favor of the HTML.
I’ll continue that list.
[ul]
[li]If I’m looking for a certain keyword, can I search your flash page for that keyword? Using edit->find?[/li][li]If I wish to cross-refence something by opening a link on your site, can I open it in another tab/window so that I can continue to read the page I’m on until it loads?[/li][li]Are low bandwidth (read: text-only) options available? This is not only to accomodate the 24K modem, but also to allow people to access your widely successful site.[/li][li]Does your site allow a user who doesn’t like sounds to save this preference?[/li][/ul]
I’ve heard the flash supporters say that you can mimic any html interface in flash, and ask what you can do in html that you can’t do in flash. Well, I think the flash-haters have come up with a fairly long list of features that can come down to a couple catagories, dealing with internal links and customizing site appearance/viewing experience. I’ve heard a lot of hemming and hawing by the flash supporters, but I haven’t heard how flash can and/or does deal with these types of situations. I have a feeling that this is because it doesn’t.
Personally, my pet flash peave is that it allows each flash item to set it’s own preferences. A lot of my flash anger would be mitigated if I could set global “Don’t play any fucking sounds” and “Don’t repeat animated ads” preferences.
-lv
Here’s one more:
What will you do for all those users whose corporate firewalls won’t allow the downloading and installation of the Flash plugin?
Okay, how about another one for good measure:
“Yawn.” Amusing, and fake response.
I have to say Sam has had made the most useful and spot on interventions in this thread, bar none. The issue in the end is who is the consumer and what does the consumer want.
Now my experience in IT is rather far from the average here, I gather. I am in analytics and business strategy. I have to agree that “Ignoring the needs of users is rampant in the tech industry. Too often, the ‘customer’ is the guy building the application, who builds it for his own amusement, or to impress other developers on the team.”
In other words, the Engineer’s Disease, sophistication for its own sake, for the sake of the technical initiates and their acoltytes and hangers on rather than real utility. As Sam says, “features that DO impress people who see computers as ‘fun’ and an end unto themselves, but which just annoy people who are just trying to get their jobs done.” This is key, for it captures the heart of the disconnect. And I say this as someone who genuinely prefers working on a computer platform rather than something else.
As Sam says “Now, no doubt people who like ‘cool’ web sites, or people who see web browsing as a game, will find that site fun. To me, having to go on a quest for the user interface is NOT fun. It’s bloody annoying.” I absolutely agree.
Perhaps for a small percentage of the universe of users “expanding the user experience” is an end in and of itself. That, however, does not characterize the larger universe of users, and this is true at the individual level as well as at the corporate level. Now there will be the rare user who really understands and is willing to invest the time to know the system well – I got my start with N. AG teaching myself their IP database inside and out – but that should not be necessary. It gets in the way of productivity and imposes extra costs, as well as introduces information gatekeeper functions that should not exists. Now I personally profited from the same in combination with other skills, but it was a real deadweight loss to the company and society at large.
Then there is ERL’s comment and Sam’s reply.
It has never been my job to know these file sizes, but again discipline breeds efficiency. That is the nature of competition. In the online world the user is looking at several competing venues. On one hand search efficiencies for databases are higher than physical systems, (abstracting away from pure bad library – database input and management issues)but then there are issues of retrieval. If your system, all cool and cutting edge, makes it more difficult for electronic access and retrieval than reasonable physical alternatives or other alternatives – recall total process time including log in competes against walk down to the library time – then your electronic system is a deadweight loss to the company. Again, IT IS WASTE.
I would rather blow the money on alcohol for the staff and make them happy than waste it on some pony tailed fuck head who cares about his art and science more than my goals. It’s more useful.
As Sam says, “Second, why in the world do we need an animated birthday cake? I can think of one good reason: On one of those web birthday cards, where the animation itself IS the content.” You know ERL, for a guy who charged in here on a free market ARL platform, you need to grapple with the real thinking more.
I wish I could say that about my old boys but what can we say. Doesn’t add jack, waste of their fucking money.
Again, Sam puts this in the real context, one sadly lacking in 99 percent of this discussion, and above all from the Flash Defense side.
As I said, whether it is in a pure business context, the “B2B” of the dot com era, or to end consumer, it’s the end user that is king, because in the end, there are other options, including walking and picking up a fucking catalogue.
My own observations here are thus…
I own a software business. We make corporate database systems for the telecomms industry which are designed to run in secure encrypted mode over the web. I have 8 employees and I run a pretty tight ship in terms of not going off on big esoteric tangents.
I’ve been designing database systems since, gee, 1988 I think.
My degree is in Computer Science - back when a degree in Computer Science was actually quite a challenging field.
Over the years, I’ve settled on a simple philosophy which I call the Holy Trinity.
(1) It has to be fast. Faster than any other competing product.
(2) It has to be bullet proof. No bugs. No hangs.
(3) It has to do what the users need it to do. Without any bullshit. Anything which the user doesn’t need, especially if it impacts on Points (1) or (2) is verboten.
But that being said, I must concede that I HAVE come across one application where a small flash graphic was really cool - and it was a website for a New Zealand singer called Bic Runga.
When you visit her website, html code is what you first see. And then, last of all, a very small flash graphic appears with a photo of the singer. That flash graphic THEN streams a pretty cool mono audio feed of one of the songs off her latest album. It’s a neat way to introduce the website, and the singer. The music starts playing about 15 seconds after logging onto her site. It’s fast to load, and it’s tastefully done without a shitload of graphics to load. And the music streams from the website’s server, which means that the site is faster to load as well.
But other than that, almost every other flash graphic I’ve ever come across on a website is just plain infuriating and annoyingly slow. And ultimately, not any more informative either.
More helpful than I could’ve hoped. Thanks guys.