Recently I met a designer/developer who was a partner at a small boutique agency in Dubai, and we started discussing on how business was going and what clients are requiring nowadays for their online and social needs. And we quickly came to the conclusion that we both hated flash!
No offense to the flash lovers out there, there are instances where it is useful but these are (and should be) very limited circumstances obviously depending on your website or application. For the record I don’t like full flash websites they are annoying, most them of them have horrible navigation because looks are put over practicality and usability and I’m pretty sure they are a nightmare to manage from a business end point of view.
For those people who manage clients let me tell you that I can’t count the number of times I heard the following:
“I want it to be flashy!”
“Will it be in flash?”
“It has to be in flash!”
Flash, flash, flash! I don’t know what the obsession is with the people of the MENA region with flash, but they love the glitter and glamor of it.
So if like me you’re fed up with this next time you here a client with this request you can tell them the following:
- Flash and search engines don’t really get along.
- It will be expensive and difficult to manage down the road.
- You will have minimum control on what you can and cannot change.
- Think of the iPhone and iPad, they don’t support it.
And for the love of God, if you do find yourself developing a full flash website please please don’t put any music playing in the background that went out of style with IE 6. If there is music then there better be a big nice mute button clear and visible.
Anyways just thought I’d get that off my chest, but please let us know if you have any comments or experiences you had managing client projects.