Back in the bad old days of the web (Bubble 1.0 for those of you who remember it), Flash was everywhere. You couldn’t develop a website if it didn’t use Flash. Was it a good thing? Probably. It broke the web out of it’s static, photos and text only infancy. I honestly believe the web wouldn’t be the medium it is now if it wasn’t for those early Flash days.
However, Flash also came at a cost. Overhead, unsupported platforms, you name it. There was also the fact that back in those days, broadband wasn’t anywhere near as prevalent as it is now. So we had websites with two version, one with Flash, and one without. Not that this was a bad thing…it made sites available to everyone, broandband and dialup alike.
Then, it all stopped, for the most part anyway. There are still places that use Flash for their web interfaces, but for the most part, people figured out that all the baggage that Flash brought with it did nothing for the usability of the site. Yes, it’s pretty to look at, but seriously, which would you rather have? A site that works the way you want it to, or a site that is pretty but limited? A site that makes it easy to add content, or a site that you have to hard-code your content into? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Flash, I just don’t see it as being viable for web interfaces. Cartoons, sure. Videos? Ok. Games, absolutely. Websites? Not so much. Embrace Web 2.0 (or whatever it’s called these days), learn CSS and AJAX, and code sites that are pretty and usable.
Don’t agree? Let me know your thoughts…leave me a comment.
