Flash-Based Sites – Pros & Cons

There are a seemingly endless number of design choices that you must make when you’re putting up your first website (or undertaking a significant redesign of your current website). You’ll have to decide, for example, whether to use a website templating system or design your site from scratch. You’ll have to make a number of “look and feel” decisions, including fonts, font sizes and colors. And at some point you’ll also have to determine whether to use Adobe’s Flash technology for all or part of your website.

Flash lets you make “movies” on your website. But unlike a traditional video, a Flash movie can be highly interactive. Some website owners also use simple Flash movies as an introduction animation that will lead into a more traditional website structure. Sometimes businesses use Flash for their entire website.

One “pro” of using Flash for all or part of your website is that you can create elements of your website that make your visitors interested and excited to be there. There are things you can do with Flash that you simply can’t do with HTML (even HTML5), so it’s relatively easy to distinguish your website from those of your competitors.

For example, you might choose to have a short introduction Flash movie that runs each time a visitor first loads your website. A well-done movie can introduce the visitor to your website by showing key stylistic elements that will continue through on your full website.

If you elect to have your entire website contained within a single Flash movie (doing so is significantly easier than you might think), another pro is that once your website (the Flash movie) loads into your visitor’s browser, there will be no lag or latency issues as they navigate between the various pages. Since your entire website is contained in the Flash movie, the entire site loads at the beginning of the session.

But there are also some “cons” with integrating Flash into your website, or making your website entirely Flash based. Perhaps the biggest con is the fact that Flash technology develops and evolves over time, and requires the website visitor to have the proper version of Flash already installed on their computers.

Some web browsers automatically keep themselves updated with the most recent versions of Flash, but many do not, and the last thing you want your users to see when they first load your website is that they need to update software on their computer. When they see other websites loading just fine, they’re liable to think something is wrong with your site.

Another downside to using Flash is that it’s more difficult to update your website when it’s Flash based than when it’s built on a more traditional website infrastructure. This is particularly the case if you make frequent updates to your site.

Ultimately, the decision of whether to incorporate Flash into your website will be depend on what you hope to accomplish with your site.