When Should You Have A Flash Website?

For a web developer, Flash is undoubtedly a powerful tool. But it is a fact that it cannot be used to resolve every kind of problem. Here we will try to understand Flash with the help of its merits and demerits. After that you can easily reach on to a conclusion whether it is productive to go for Flash website development or not. Of course, our ultimate target is to benefit the visitors by good information.

Advantages of using Flash:

- It is not dependent on the kind of OS that you have: Vista or Linux and the kind of Browser that you are using (but for the sake of passing information, Mozilla is the most common one and it has flash support). The only thing that a system needs is the plug ins and the flash applications become supported

- When seeking any kind of animation then go for flash; it’s the best of its kind.

- Most applications that are based on flash are easily picked up by video players like Quick Time

- Flash games have absolutely no bandwidth limitations and that is what makes them most interesting and favored.

- During Flash website development, vector graphics can look smoother and appealing. There is a facility of image replacement as well for the special fonts. The process of image replacement can be done with a technique known as sIFR i.e. Scalable Inman Flash Replacement. Besides the above mentioned features, Flash applications can also perform the task of script actions and data collection.

To add the icing, Flash Applications can serve the purpose of data collection. But it is not all good news for the Flash as there are also some downsides to using it. Some of the major ones are highlighted below:

- Limitations with speed and the bandwidth. Most of the Flash websites are slow to download. In most of the cases, you cannot operate them before complete download.

- There is the problem of going back to pages previously viewed when you are using the Flash. Sure when you are using some the ‘Back’ button in an ordinary web page there is no problem, but when you transition into using a flash enabled site then you are bond to encounter some problems.

- You need a really good screen reader to read flash images and these are hard to locate

- It is not possible for the search engines to read and interpret them either. The web crawlers look for the suitable text or content and look for the standard HTML link(s) demanded by the user. Only those Flash sites come in top ranking that contains both versions of the site i.e. Flash + HTML.

- Not all among the internet savvy understand the function or the role that is played by the flash applications. In most of these cases, the unknowing internet users take them to be eye candy and this is bad especially if the user in question was a potential buyer.

Conclusion: So now you know all the pros and cons of Flash website development and it’s up to you to decide what is best. Flash offers numerous benefits but customer’s dissatisfaction and SEO inaccessibility are the prime drawbacks associated with it. When it comes to site navigation then it is highly recommended never to use Flash.