I hate Flash

I realise that this is my second post recently with the word hate in the title and I don't want you to draw any hasty conclusions about my mental health but I feel strongly about the web and yes, that does involve hating some things.

Not all Flash but about 98% of Flash makes me want to cry bitter tears. Flash websites are (mostly) bespoken by organisations who fundamentally misunderstand why they need a website, and by vain and short-termist management who care more about making their organisation look swanky than they do about the bottom line.

There are exceptions. Google Anayltics very effectively presents its dynamically-generated infographics in Flash. YouTube uses a Flash video platform to serve videos of kittens to students (a billion times every day). But most people with Flash sites or Flash intros end up looking like John Lester and do you want to end up like him? I didn't think so.

If for some reason you really do need to animate something (for instance if you are an animator) then Flash is possibly a good idea. If you're just a bit mad and for some dark reason of your own want your navigational menu items to pop out of a tree, or be sprinkled over the page by a dancing pixie magically crafted out of your company's logo, then you probably need medication more than you need a website.

Hyperbole aside, the point I'm making is that Flash is mostly a terrible mistake, and for the following reasons:

• It is very expensive to build a Flash site, because it takes so long to do so; and
• It is very expensive to update a Flash site, for the same reason; and
• Flash sites are still all but invisible to search engines (this is starting to improve, but slowly); and, most importantly,
• Flash sites are hard to use.

Often when I arrive at a website and I'm searching for something, I use my browser's inbuilt search function (Cmd / Ctrl + F). This doesn't work with Flash. HTML sites (as opposed to Flash sites) use features which are built into your browser, like hyperlinks, scroll bars, form elements (text fields, buttons and so on) and so on. Your browser was designed and tested by a team of clever engineers. Flash websites tend to over-ride these facilities with replacement functionality which never works as well. Browsers have their own perfectly good scrollbars. Why would you build your own?

The problem stems from the terrible idea that a website is, or should be, an "experience." Watching a TV advert is an experience. Going to Ocean Park or eating a sandwich is an experience. A website should not be thought of as an experience. A website is, or should be, a collection of information, organised in an effective and logical manner, presented in an appealing way with minimal barriers to those who want to access it, whoever they are and however they wish to do so. It makes no difference if that information is promotional material. A website is a machine for transmitting information.

(I'm not saying websites shouldn't look good, but the best-looking machines are the the most fit for purpose. Zippos. Space shuttles. MacBook Pros. E-type Jaguars. Form automatically follows function.)

People do not visit your architecture firm's website or your online clothes store to find out how good you are at animation. They visit with the clear intention of finding out information or buying a product. Why make this harder?