Introduction

It amazes me that the purpose of Flash is still being debated today. People have disagreed on when and why to use Flash ever since it was first spotted in the mid to late 90’s. What amazes me even further, is that a decade later most people still don’t know what the debate was ever about. Essentially, when you use Flash to build a website you incur serious challenges worth noting to the usability, accessibility and visibility of your site. Things that can really have an impact on it's success. Until recently, most people considered these aggravations as trade-offs for the enhanced experience you can deliver using Flash, particularly animation. The truth is that we don't always have to make these trade-offs. In this article I will explain exactly what some of the more important issues are and in part two I will give examples of what we can do to overcome them. Please keep in mind this is NOT an anti Flash article. I use, and recommend the use of Flash on a daily basis. I wanted to write this for those who never fully understood the debate on Flash, or to help those who find themselves on one side of it to feel more comfortable joining us in the middle.

To understand the issue fully it helps to have some background on Flash as it relates to key moments in the history of the Internet. Understandably not everyone will find this information useful, if you would like a brief history of how we got Flash to begin with (agency perspective) head over here, then come back.

So what IS the problem with Flash?

Before I continue it’s worth mentioning a handful of uses for Flash that make perfect sense, and have ever since the inception of it. Online ads; movement, animation and eye popping visuals are essential to grabbing attention. Games; what would we do without Flash for games? Thus far it delivers us the most engaging experience for sound, animation, video and interactivity. To this list I might add certain web applications that require a more “event driven” nature where page loads would be to cumbersome, as well as certain “micro-sites” that are primarily used to impress a brand than they are to actually educate or transact online.

Now, the big list of reasons Flash purely sucks as a website, e-commerce solution, blog, or anything intending to promote and deliver information with any sort of hierarchy at all.

1.) The "back" button doesn't work

Unless you provide your users a "special back button" at all times in your Flash project, you run the risk of the user reaching right up into the browser for a button to go “back.” Can you blame them? That's what it's supposed to do. In fact, even if you do all that extra work there will still be users expecting the browser to handle this function. Why is this a problem? Flash content is all running in a plug-in sitting "inside" one page in the browser, Flash and your browser are not really working together much at all. When you start clicking through pages in a Flash site, only Flash really knows where you went, and I find very few Flash sites bother to even keep track. So if you click the browsers “back” button where do you go? Exactly where you should go, the last webpage you visited. Most users are completely baffled that in a Flash site they have been in one webpage the entire time. When they get sent back to the goggle search results, or your home page were you asked them to chose Flash or HTML, they are frustrated. In Internet terms we call this “I’m outta here.”

2.) Your users can't link to specific content on your site

Next up for bid on the list of “why Flash sucks for websites” would be this one. Your user gets to your site, clicks around, and spots something they really connect with, they want to remember it or maybe even better for you, they want to pass it along. Alright! Now we’re talking, we just gained a customer! Wrong… why? Because your user copies the URL of your site into an e-mail and says to their friend “check out these killer shoes, that green is awesome.” There friend gets the e-mail sees their friends enthusiasm, and rightfully so clicks the link, instant disappointment, they arrive at the company home page with no killer green shoes in sight. Why? Because Flash pages are not really pages at all, Flash doesn’t “travel” anywhere. When you click through an HTML site you are asking for unique ‘”pages” to be loaded and this is reflected in the “address bar" at the top. When a user goes from the home page to the green shoes page something in the address changes and makes it a “destination” that can be revisited directly. The friend in the Flash site has no idea where the green shoes are located, and in a more complex example they could realistically take over 30 clicks to find. Again, “I’m outta here.”

3.) You can't track your visitors

So, this brings me to the third insult to Flash as a competent website medium. All that content if it’s not actually “pages” of content being loaded in, with a hierarchy then what s it? It’s [typically] a collection of content all bunched together inside an animation tool with some code to simulate what real websites do when you go from one page to another. You click on “shoes’ and the site is programmed to show you that content. You have traveled nowhere and the site is likely not tracking that click.

3.) Search engines don't see your content

Search engines and metrics. If the content is all in the Flash player how does a site indexer like Google find it? And if we never really travel anywhere, who’s keeping track of the page hits beyond the home page for later evaluation? The answers are, Goggle cant see or index the content, and no one is tracking the page hits beyond the home page. Now, right now, some of you are saying “no, you're wrong I figured out a way to achieve this even inside Flash.” Bravo, me too, and our work combined, is less than 10% of the 1,000s of Flash “websites” being built every day across the world.

Flash makes up a huge portion of what me and my team do on a daily basis. Albeit more often a online ad, game or one-ff type project there is still the occasional request for the really energetic and engaging “website.” So what does one do? There are a few things that can be done to help us out when we MUST use Flash for building websites. What follows in part two is by no means every solution, they are just a few we have used and come to see as great ways to overcome Flash’s inherent shortcomings as a “website” medium.


tags: catalyst studios, minneapolis, minnesota, flash, catalyst, interactive, graphic design, deep linking, back button, flash websites, analytics with flash, seo, problems with flash, part 1,

Catalyst Studios is evolving, and I for one, am thrilled to be part of it.

I decided that for my inaugural article on this blog I will regale you with the story of how Catalyst Studios transformed from a renowned local graphic design firm, to being invited to pitch against national-full service ad agencies four times our size, predominantly for our interactive & digital media offerings.



You don't just wake up and find yourself part of something this profound. But I have. It feels magical. For me it all started about two years ago when a confused talent recruiter sent [me] the completely wrong person to an interview for a graphic design position at a design agency in the warehouse district. I knew this going in, but I still went, after what transpired I almost believe in fate. I plopped down in the chair to see three typical ad-types staring back at me, perhaps a little jarred by my complete lack of interest to impress. "This is probably a big waste of all our time" was the first thing out of my mouth. To this day I can't remember what actually happened in the rest of that meeting, just that it felt special. I wasn't naive. I could deduce I had wrangled myself a fairly lofty (and perhaps bogus) title. Their previous web developer had moved away and was now less accessible. Here comes me, hungry for an impressive title and proficient in about 14 languages, video, sound, and architecture. Sure, you can be our new 28 year old "Interactive Director" in a department of...1. Knock yourself out, kid.

I have to be honest it didn't really phased me. The Catalyst magic was already inside me and like Pinocchio I set out to make my bogus title a real one. I got right to work and within 2 months had lost us our biggest interactive client. You read that correctly, I'll give you a minute to frame that up. You would think that would pretty much devastate anyone, right there. I can't lie, it felt like failure incarnate. Dazed from the loss, and somewhat in awe of my blunder, I got to thinking about a few things. Thousands of things, really. All the things I hated about interactive work (as I had experienced it). Naive time lines, bogus budgets, unwarranted long hours, creative for pretty sake, misdirected focus, trying to simulate viral occurrences, conversations about ROI, free booze, and generally people who just have no business being around interactive projects. I thought about all the campaigns I had been part of, too many to remember. I thought about the most successful ones and the ones I never like to mention. I took my department of 1 and decided to make the most of it. I picked apart all the bad process I had seen during the decade I had spent passing through the bowls of the interactive advertising industry. Every chance I saw to change something I had hated, I changed it. I didn't always know it would work, but I knew I was done telling myself (or anyone else) it could be done right, this time friends, I was going to prove it. Slowly, over time, things started to click. I started seeing money left over at the end of a project (profit?) I saw sites launching on time. I saw designers and programmers frolicking together. I saw a knight leap from a caste wall into a mote. I saw people visiting our sites, clicking, and clicking a lot. I saw my clients coming back for more before I could bill them for the work we had just done! It was foreign, it was luxurious. [growl, slobber] It was working!

Fast forward two years. The work we do here is getting major attention. My team is getting younger and I'm the 30 year old "old-fart" that goes to bed early just so tomorrows work comes sooner. Sound sick? I don't care. I'm not drinking the koolaid this time, it's not free beer, it's not hype, ringleaders, or theme songs. The only thing making me whistle while I make coffee in the morning is the satisfaction that we did it. We proved it can be done, and I'm lucky enough to be a par of it. Catalyst Interactive makes the most gorgeous, technologically profound online experiences I have ever seen. On time, on budget. Profitable. Our clients love us long after the project goes live. We work 9-5. There's not going to be any branded process here. In fact, what we have, is closer to un-process. No packaged up Catarifically Cool intellectual property to sell and no all-stars on the team. Not even me. We struck gold at the bottom of ego-free teamwork. We're comprised of some of the most brilliant strategic minds I have known, and yet we are interdependent. I feel terrible for all the people who had us working all-nighters building Flash micro-sites chanting "R O I", and never actually achieving any.

I'd be lying if I said it isn't a little fun to be out maneuvering larger competitors with little more than common sense and hard work.

I'm proud of you, you know who you are ;-)

tags: catalyst studios, minneapolis, minnesota, jared lukes, catalyst, interactive,