Technology
Flash – New Technology
In recent years the web appears to have become trendier and more multimedia oriented than in its early days. While in some domains the new technologies work and prove successful in most cases they don’t add to the user experience, on the contrary, they just make browsing the Internet more difficult and time consuming.
This article means to point out the drawbacks of using Flash as well as give some pointers on how to better use it and make sure it affects less the accessibility and usability of websites.
The New Technology – Flash Summary
Flash is probably the newest and trendiest technology currently used in web design. Nearly everyone ranging from beginners to experienced web designers learn how to create and implement Flash in their websites. Flash, unlike HTML is not open source. Flash is a trademark of Macromedia. Some predict that when the web will become more of a WebTV and multimedia show, Flash will replace almost completely the HyperText Markup Language (HTML).
Current Issues With Flash And JavaScript
Flash has been the “releaser of energy” for all the trendy web designers on the Internet because it allowed them to express more of what they wanted to say. Soon, Flash had literally taken over thousands of websites. While Flash can be successfully used in web sites with profiles in music, multimedia, online games, interactive activities etc, on most sites Flash is used for the sake of using it and raises serious issues for users.
* Most users are still – despite what many believe – on slow Internet connections such as dial up. Flash is not bandwidth friendly and many designers do not create Flash files bearing this issue in mind. Users on slow connections have to wait a fair bit of time before the web page with Flash loads.
* There are still many users who do not have the Flash player installed and they are not willing to or don’t know how to do it.
It is not fair to exclude these users from using a website for the sake of design. Design (and all the technologies employed in creating it) should aid users in finding the information they seek not slow them down in doing so.
