Forum Moderators: not2easy
nuff said.
Flash is great for *some* intros... can do amazing things with embedded graphics and navigation, but when used for an intro, sooner or later I think the animation should stop. At some point, you need to be able to click a link and get to a page with content that doesn't move (even better if it's informative). This site just never let up.
Edited by: mivox
The Flash is phenomenal, but I question the application. It would be better as a compliment to some solid information about the company.
Judging from the client list I see there they already are a player in their field. I think they just wanted a really kickin' presentation to wow the customers who are there probably because they have already heard about this company.
This is one of the best "presentation" sites I've come across yet. It is entirely functional in its purpose...inform the user about the company through an animated web site. The little red M&M guy really adds the perfect touch with his "determined" personality.
What really draws me in is the authors sense of timing and space. Depth is something hard to acheive in vector graphics and here they are using the motion to create the feeling of depth. The music is absolutely incredible...if you've ever messed with Flash you know what I'm talking about. The way he layered it and the quality is outstanding.
I just have to give it "Two Thumbs Up"
I don't think it lasted even a week. They just HAD to pull it, it was killing traffic, even with a "skip the Flash movie" button.
Here's [url=http.www.dickinson.com]another Flash site[/url] from a top end direct marketer, the kind that works by the numbers. After a few initial struggles, you can see that they ended up with -- an opt-in version of their Flash movie. They watched the site's stats and knew that forcing a Flash movie on a visitor was not going to work.
As far as I can see, this stuff is still non-functional from a marketing perspective. Flash elements - yes; full blown Flash mini-movies, not so far. Maybe the day someone from a solid marketing background learns Flash. So far, everything I've seen just looks like graphic self-indulgence.
The dennisinter.com site is a good example of this as they are involved in print and it really present and excellent platform to show their skills. They also have HTML version.
Flash is also better than using HTML and images, I did an animated logo for a company which took you to the main HTML page 3 seconds after the animation finished. The company wanted an intro page anyway and if I had used a JPG or animated GIF (puke) the file size would have been bigger than the 5K flash file.
Look I like HTML but there is no way it can come even close to matching Flash in tems of presentation.
I'm totally with you on the improvement of Flash over animated gif. In fact, I'm thrilled at it's potential. I'd say, along with embedding sound, simple animated elements are some of the most effective uses I've seen. But I'd say all the lessons learned about animation on a web page need to be exported to Flash:
1) One moving element at a time is enough.I'd say one of the biggest usability principles is that just because a thing CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. And whatever we do, we should always measure the results.
2) The closer the animation resembles "natural world" movement (wind, water, fire, handwriting, objects approaching/retreating/turning) the better.
3) Always ask: will return visitors appreciate the animation the tenth time around, or just be irritated?
Yeah I completley agree with you too many people opt to use flash because THEY think it looks good and dont really think "Is this going to improve my site? Are people going to appreciate this?"
Whenever I do a site involoving flash I always have a HTML option.
Hmm Actually I lie, I did my CV in flash and got very good results from it. It has that wow factor which impresses people and i would even go so far as to say that its smaller and more user friendly than if i used web pages.
