David Coffey - Web Designer & Developer

Thoughts on the use of Flash for the new decade

Posted by David on 1 February 2010 | 88 Comments

Tags: web, flash, coding

Flash reached the height of its popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s. Flash intros into websites were common, as were Flash games. In 2002 most people would have probably commented that the "awesomest" websites out there on the web were Flash based. But somewhere towards the mid 2000s two things happened:

     1. People realized that Flash was more annoying that it was cool.
     2. JavaScript matured into a significant programming force on the web.

Today, Flash website intros are a rare sight. People got tired of waiting for them to load. There are a couple other few critical problems with Flash that can make it a bad idea to use for a client.

Accessibility problems

It is difficult to achieve 508 compliance with Flash. It's not impossible, but it is a big hassle. Your application needs to be usable without a mouse, and a screen reader needs to be able to read its text, among other things. All this stuff works already without any extra effort from you with good old-fashioned HTML.

It won't work on the iPhone

Apple sold record numbers of these things last year, (one of them was to me). Developing any of your websites' functionality with Flash excludes a growing portion of your audience. To cater to iPhone users of your site, you are going to need a non-Flash version anyway.

But don't count it out entirely...

Having said this, Flash can still do some things that are impossible or impractical for other web tools. Flash is still the best way to control audio and video on the web, at least until HTML 5 comes along. It is also still the best way to do any complex animation on your site. Animation can be done with JavaScript, but it is much more tedious and less compatible across browsers.

If you do choose to use Flash, here are my guidelines for the its use in the new decade:

1. Don't use Flash for anything that can be accomplished with JavaScript

Many basic interactions that used to be done with Flash can now easily be done with JavaScript libraries and plug-ins for them. Slide shows, drop-down menus, lightboxes, autocompleters, simple animations & interactions can all be built using JavaScript within minutes.

2. Don't use Flash for any critical functionality of your website

This means navigation, viewing content, or anything that is a core feature of your website (unless your core features are playing audio, video, or games). Just use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

3. Keep your Flash usage subtle

If you use Flash, integrate it into your HTML pages. Use it only as a part of your page that enhances the content on the page. Or, use it behind the scenes to control your audio or video.

4. Don't make users wait for your Flash content to load

Unless I am going to play a complex Flash game, I don't have time to wait for Flash content to load. Keep your SWFs small enough so they load right away.

A couple examples of Flash used well:

Google Analytics uses Flash excellently. It uses it for its bar graphs, maps, and charts where the variables that drive its content are fed in from the back end. The charts and displays are alongside HTML content and you can control the Flash objects with HTML links.

Soundmanager2, which is my favorite choice for audio and video control on my websites uses Flash, but you never see it. JavaScript passes variables and commands to Flash to control the audio or video. It also degrades gracefully for people who don't have Flash, like iPhone users. The files will try to open on an OS native media player.