April 2006: Why Flash.

The MANOVERBOARD Telegraph, No. 21.

In this month's Telegraph, I would like to focus on a new website that MANOVERBOARD launched a few weeks ago for a company in New York called Bra*Tenders. I'll also discuss Flash, which has become both more and less relevant to many clients.

Located in mid-town Manhattan, Bra*Tenders has over 30 years experience in providing women's and men's undergarments to producers on Broadway, actors in Hollywood and costume professionals around the world. As they note on their new website, designed by MANOVERBOARD, their best-kept secret can be defined in one word: bras. Unlike few other companies in the world, Bra*Tenders understands how bras—large, small and otherwise—fit. The company writes: "It's our sincere vow to help you find the undergarments you need to look and feel your best—whether you're performing in a brand new show, getting married, sporting a size 32GG, or simply walking down the street."

I visited the store many times during our initial conversations and I was consistently impressed by the expertise and customer service Bra*Tenders offers every customer. The new website aims to replicate those aspects of the store by clearly and attentively detailing what products Bra*Tenders offers, who the company serves (given the breadth of their service, it could be anyone), and even an outstanding photographic online tutorial on How a Bra Should Fit. A number of people have asked me why there is no e-commerce on the website. The reason is quite simple: the company's years of experience and customer service cannot be matched by a website that simply sells products. If you're in New York and you need a bra (or 20), I encourage you to visit their store.

Why (Not) Flash.

For some reason, many of my clients, both new and old, have recently expressed a renewed interest in Flash, a product developed and sold by Macromedia, which was recently acquired by Adobe. These clients want the "pizazz" that comes with Flash; this includes complex link rollovers, music, sound, movies and often beautiful film-like transitions. This at a time when, in my opinion, websites are increasingly moving toward logical presentation, clean code, and greater overall usability based on years of experience and user analysis.

I like Flash. It's a good tool when used to increase a company's unique brand value (such as that of Nike. A full Flash website can allow a visitor to accomplish tasks that are next to impossible with HTML or XHTML and CSS. And small bits of Flash on a website can be pretty.

But, for me, my love affair with Flash has ended. I've spent considerable time with clients lately explaining the short-term and long-term problems and issues with Flash and I thought I'd share them, briefly, here. I don't recommend Flash (for nearly all websites) because:

1. It takes anywhere from two to fives times more work to design and develop.
2. It uses proprietary code that can be changed, on a whim, by its corporate owners at any time.
3. It requires a browser plug-in which most browsers have but perhaps, astoundingly, as many as 5% to 10% do not.
4. Many corporate IT departments have prevented Flash from being installed on their employees' browsers to keep them from playing games and doing other non-work-related activities.
5. Link colors don't work. Given this, you cannot easily see where you've been and which links you've yet to visit. This lack of orientation creates navigational confusion.
6. It costs a lot to update. Making changes to Flash files, which are embedded in HTML, can be a lot of work.
7. The "make text bigger/smaller" button or function found in browsers does not work with Flash. Website visitors are therefore forced to read text in the designer-specified font size, which is often way too small as designers tend to have excellent vision.
8. It's not search engine friendly. When Google or Yahoo! sends out spiders to visit your site for content, it bypasses almost anything in Flash.
9. In general, Flash integrates poorly with search.
10. It's not inherently accessible. Flash takes a lot of work to make it readable and usable for those with disabilities.
11. Finally, as usability expert Jakob Nielsen has written, resources that go into Flash production might be better spent in creating updated site content. Flash content is typically created once and not updated.

Previous to starting MANOVERBOARD, I used to work with a large company that excelled at developing innovative Flash-based websites and I wrote many, many reports and papers on the beauty of Flash and Flash components. I was (and still am) a believer in Web-based applications and better interactivity. And Flash can be used in helpful, accessible, and still prominent ways as we did for Accessible Systems, Inc. a few months ago.

But, for the vast majority of websites, Flash is unnecessary and a technology not worth pursuing.

Postscript: I wrote this about two weeks ago. Since then, Barneys New York, a long-time client of MANOVERBOARD, has changed its website from a full Flash site to an HTML-based one. I was not involved in the new site's redesign, but I believe the move away from Flash was wise.

I look forward to bringing you more news and ideas from MANOVERBOARD in the coming weeks.

Best wishes,

Andrew Boardman, Principal