Re: FLASH: FLASH 99% BAD

[Chad Byers]

You have some very good points here Roland.  I invite you to send a copy of this

e-mail to Jakob, perhaps he requires some education.

--

Chad H. Byers

The Idea Plant, Inc.

Right brained work for left brained reasons.

www.theideaplant.com




Roland Combes wrote:


> >>> Second, one of the Web's most powerful features is that it lets users

> control their own destiny. Users go where they want, when they want. This

> quality is what makes the Web so usable, despite its many usability

> problems.  <<<

>

> One of the great things about Flash that seems to escape this guy is that it

> provides the designer with the CHOICE of providing control or not.

> Sometimes you need to prevent the user from blindly backing up to pages that

> were not meant to be executed twice (e.g. purchase request pages) or placing

> bookmarks at pages that cannot be reloaded in vacuo or browsing the source

> code for nefarious purposes.

>

> In my line of work providing controlled online education is a must.  Flash

> provides the most control over the delivery of information and subsequent

> evaluation.

>

> >>> How many scrollbar designs do we need? Actually, we probably do need a

> new scrollbar design for online content; the current scrollbar was designed

> for office automation content that users wrote themselves.  <<<

>

> He admits we do need a new scrollbar design for online content yet blast

> Flash designers for introducing ther own nonstandard GUI controls.  Flash

> has libraries of interface elements that use the same interface guidelines

> designed  for Windows and Mac menus, radio buttons, etc., yet can be altered

> to fit the color scheme of the GUI or provide extra specialized utility.

>

> >>> (Flash content tends to be created once and then left alone).  <<<

>

> Obviously has no concept of Generator coupled with Flash.

>

> >>> If Flash was cheap to produce and if all content creators could make a

> Flash object as easily as they write a standard Web page, then perhaps many

> of these problems would be alleviated.  <<<

>

> In order to do what I and my 3 content developers (none of which know Flash)

> do, my company would have to use 3 HTML developers, a graphic artist, and a

> Cold Fusion developer all of whom cost twice what my department costs.  And

> even then the result is not as attractive to our customers.

>

> >>> Internationalization and localization is complicated. Local websites

> must enlist a Flash professional to translate content.  <<<

>

> Our company, eHealth Latin America (www.eHealthLA.com), develops both

> Spanish and Portugese content for health education, news, and community

> connectivity.  I speak no Portugese and my Spanish is less than stellar.

> None of our translaters or localization experts even know the first thing

> about Flash.  Yet through the use of Generator and external text files, the

> translation is EASIER in Flash than in HTML.

>

> This guy misses the boat on so many issues we should at least point out the

> one he probably has right.

>

> - Flash reduces accessibility for users with disabilities.

>

> How do we address this?  Is this simply a case of duplicating the Flash page

> in plain-Jane HTML so that visually-impaired users can listen to what others

> would see in Flash?

>

> - Roland Combes

> eHealthLA.com

> p.s. The Flash portion of our site has not gone live yet as we are building

> our content for a release date next month.





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