Newsletter Archive > Flash Vs. Html - Pros and Cons

We are often approached by clients who ask us to design a website for them using Flash. Often, they do not know the difference between a Flash website and a standard HTML site but they know they like the animated graphics, slick page transitions and control that Flash offers. In this article we will discuss the pros and cons of having a Flash website.

What is Flash?

Flash is a program developed by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe. Using Flash you can create interactive content for websites, media rich advertisements, presentations, and games.

What Are the Benefits of Flash?

Flash provides unlimited design options and control over layout, font choice and colors. Because Flash animations are vector based, designers can create interactive animations with relatively small file sizes. Unlike pixel based graphics, vector graphics are small in file size and can be scaled up or down without affecting their quality.

What Are the Downfalls of Flash?

There are usability issues with Flash, one of the most important being that Flash renders the ‘back’ button on your web browser completely useless. Instead of taking you back to the previous page in the Flash website, the back button takes you all the way back to the beginning of the site which is normally the splash page. Thus Flash destroys the visitor’s ability to be in control of their browsing experience.

Flash pages cannot be bookmarked or printed. Another major problem with a Flash website is that the search engines will completely ignore the content of your site. Search engines cannot index a Flash website which means that all of your written material within your website will never be found. And if your website can’t be search engine optimized, why spend the time, effort and money creating one?

Other Considerations: Updating Your Flash Website

If you decide to develop your website with Flash, be sure to get the original Flash source files from your designer. This can’t be stressed enough. Without these files you will not be able to make simple changes to your site like adding new pages, updating content, or altering graphics.

The Final Verdict

What is appropriate for your target audience? Flash websites are heavily relied upon by the entertainment industry to promote their projects because they can provide features and functions designed to entertain their visitors and keep them clicking through the site. However, if you are designing a website where the key objective is to deliver information quickly and efficiently to a broad audience, an HTML website is clearly the way to go.