You may know Adobe Flash has become a “popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages” (w). Flash can be fancy; flash can be cool; flash can be fun. There are a lot of good applications for flash animation on the web. But, in general, business “brochure” websites are not among them. If you’re not in the business of entertainment or high-end product sales, then don’t get stuck in the trap of over-animating your website at the expense of ease of use (and possibly at the expense of SEO and search engine rankings).
With that in mind, I’m presenting a nominee for the most frivolous use of flash animation on a business site:
- http://www.hrassonline.info/ – It may be one of the most overly animated sites I have ever seen. Someone learned Flash and wanted to put it to use…but went way overboard. The site takes a while to load, and then even after the animation begins there are no menu options available for several seconds. Users have to sit through a superfluous introduction every time they visit the home page.
Update 6/30/2008: In all fairness, this site is an out-of-the-box (aka: do-it-yourself) website created using SiteCube…so I guess SiteCube really deserves the credit.
Update 7/22/2009: Unfortunately for us this site is no longer online. I wonder why.
The lesson here: think about your users. Flash can be a nice touch visually, but make sure you don’t impede the usability of your site. Basically, make sure your business website does its job first; and entertains second.
Runners Up for Over-Use of Flash Award:
- http://www.tanfletcher.com/ – Open this, click on ‘Home Page’, and then hold on to your seat. This one might give you a seizure.
- http://www.fastlanestudios.net/ – Stretching letters in the flash intro. Nice touch that makes the message even harder to read.
But don’t take my word for it:
- check out the Wall Street Journal’s article, How Flashy Web Sites Can Turn Off Customers.
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