Flashturbation - The Wrong Way to a Sticky Site - Page: 2

These designers don't care about pleasing their audience or their clients. They don't care if your modem isn't fast enough to handle their site. All they care about is putting their tools to work and showing off how talented they are.

There's a name for this:

Flashturbation
Flashturbation is the inappropriate use of new Internet technologies, especially Macromedia Flash. Flash makes it possible for web designers to put fancy animations and advanced multimedia into their sites. The problem is, it may look good but it can make a site slow to load and hard to use, especially in the hands of the inexperienced. 

Flashturbation may win design awards and look cool, but it generally chases away web surfers. Many surfers are turned off by it, and will leave your site if you indulge in it. Nevertheless, it is seen everywhere, but especially at the web front doors of graphic design studios and advertising agencies.

Don't Flash Your Visitors
Most web surfers have to take things slow. They don't have high speed connections, and they don't want you to ram your bloated site down their throats.

They like a site to work with them. They like a site to entice them in, and to encourage them to explore. Surfers don't want to get Flashed at the front door to your site, even if you ask them if it's ok.

Surfers don't want to go to a site that looks cool. They want to go to a site that is cool.

Be Cool
Give surfers a site that responds to their needs. They're looking for a site that gives them what they want. They want to be able to find things, to be interested and excited, and even to be able to share their thoughts and feedback. 

Once your visitors are comfortable with your site, that's a good time to experiment and try out some new things.  But don't Flash them without giving them some other options; not everybody can go that fast. If you have a good reason to use multimedia, try to present the same information in regular html and images. This will make your site a lot easier to swallow.

Remember, there's nothing wrong with using Flash or any of the other new Internet technologies. Don't feel ashamed or embarrassed if you feel the urge to use them in your site. Just be discreet about it.