Future of Flash Websites?
I’ve slowly developed some negative feelings about Flash websites. “I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life (web) than being really, really good looking.”
When I saw the get the glass website, my jaw fell off. But after I played for half an hour, I didn’t get any idea of what the product is about. Has Flash gone too far?
I feel that people who visit Flash websites are mostly designers and web/flash developers. They create flash websites themselves as well. They are very unlikely to be the target audience of these sites. Awards are given to sites that other designers or developers think they sites are good. So, are we in a circle of people who smell one another’s fart and try to judge whose fart is the most creative/smelly/colorful one?
I feel the whole Flash websites thing is like working in one big advertising agency and we are serving the sole client “Flash”. We try all means to promote Flash, to tell others that Flash is really really good looking/friendly/creative, but are we serving our real clients?
once again, the tool is being confused with what is being built with it. Flash is a tool….you use it to create things. If what people are creating with it isn’t impressive, it isn’t flash’s fault. (think about annoying banner ads…is that flash’s fault? or the people using the tool to do something horrible with it?).
And I disagree that flash sites are mostly visited only be flash designers/developers. We notice it al ot more of course, becaue that’s our world, and it’s going to get passed around in our circle a lot more. But when huge corporations (soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, movies, etc) are all using flash on their web sites, I hardly think all their visitors are just flash developers.
“I didn’t get any idea of what the product is about.”
It’s milk, the game was riddled with references to how milk can make you healthier.
Most product orientated websites, ones that don’t rely on online sales in any way, are mainly just online commercials.
the thing is that flash can make sites more appealing then the product themselves.
The milk board must have a lot of cash reserves – I can’t imagine how much development went into that.
Hi there… stumbled onto your site looking for a solution to a flash issue and noticed this post.
One element of this topic that rarely gets discussed is file size. I was curious to see the “get the glass” site that made your jaw drop, but it took too long to load and I abandoned it. And I’m on a decently fast DSL connection.
Seems like an equally (or more) effective site could have been produced with less video and whiz-bang to reduce file size and make the site quicker to load (and therefore get to more eyeballs, faster). 2¢
And I agree about our self-congratulating design field possibly losing site of the end user. To add to the mix, often clients want “bigger, faster, more” and on the web that means Flash, video, etc and lots of boring loading sequences.
I agree with you. I was loading the site in office with coporate broadband but the speed is considerably slow. My colleagues said that they can’t view it from home at all.
But file size issue is not so obvious nowadays. I feel the situation is similar to game industry. Nowadays games are designed for future computers. Games like crysis, bioshock ect, I can’t play them in the highest quality with my newly upgraded computer. What game developers are doing now has a bit sense. We shouldn’t get too restricted too by technologies. We know internet and processors are definitely getting faster so we can build something for the high end people first and slowly (maybe pretty soon) most of the rest will be able use it too.
But again, there should be a balance between the heavy effects and the rate of reaching your target audience. It’s hard to reach the balance and sometimes it’s decided by the client.
As my conclusion, Get the Glass is the site of the year + choice of people! What can I say?
You really should check out the website of 2advanced website.http://www.2advanced.com.
this milk website is nothing to comare to that website. You really gona feel like you are in future.