Slow loading time: Flash sites can take minutes to download before the visitor even

reaches content. Despite the courtesy of status bars showing the remaining load

time, it is still aggravating to wait for content that should be instant. A great deal of

the frustration in this point stems from the fact that business sites are almost 1

always architected with content as the focal point. When a person has to wait for a

Flash interface to load, they are being withheld the real meat of the website because

some designer placed their interests—a glamorous but painstakingly slow design—

ahead of the interests of the general audience. This is the definition of bad usability.

Inaccessibility: Although Adobe promotes the accessibility features of recent Flash

versions, the fact remains that the tools are weak, and few developers even use

them. If a blind or motor-impaired user ever visited a company’s Flash-based web-

site, there’s a good chance they would be completely unable to discern the con-

tent. See Figure 1-4 as an example of a Flash website that has no meaningful

content inside the code.

Search engine hindrances: Because Flash obfuscates text inside SWF files, search

engines have no means of reading and indexing the content, because they rely on

HTML text to not only see the actual words, but also how those words are organ-

ized into a meaningful structure, like headers, paragraphs, and links.

Usability issues: Besides the load-time and accessibility hindrances, Flash introduces

other usability concerns, such as breaking the browser’s Back button and the

inability to bookmark individual pages.

Figure 1-4. While Flash websites like this one designed by Geary Interactive can often bring the wow

factor to visitors, they present numerous usability and accessibility challenges.

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OVERVIEW

Slow loading time: Flash sites can take minutes to download before the visitor even

reaches content. Despite the courtesy of status bars showing the remaining load

time, it is still aggravating to wait for content that should be instant. A great deal of

the frustration in this point stems from the fact that business sites are almost 1

always architected with content as the focal point. When a person has to wait for a

Flash interface to load, they are being withheld the real meat of the website because

some designer placed their interests—a glamorous but painstakingly slow design—

ahead of the interests of the general audience. This is the definition of bad usability.

Inaccessibility: Although Adobe promotes the accessibility features of recent Flash

versions, the fact remains that the tools are weak, and few developers even use

them. If a blind or motor-impaired user ever visited a company’s Flash-based web-