The Overuse of Flash
As a web developer I've never been a big fan of Flash. Like Internet Explorer 6 and the RIAA, Flash is one of those things that has been around forever, and is almost always a complete waste of time. Having long since jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, I've gotten used to the rare, but notable cases when I can't view content because it requires having Flash installed. While I'm personally happy not having Flash slowing down my mobile web browsing experience, a recent scenario came up that reminded me just how far we have to go before Flash is put in its rightful place.
On September 9th I received this email from Sprint. Having seen mention of new Sprint product on Twitter the day before, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and wasn't disappointed. This post isn't an ad for Sprint, although I will take the moment to say that I think what they are offering is pretty great (if only they had a phone I actually want to use).
You might not notice if you weren't looking for it, but Sprint's AnyMobile page is Flash, in its entirety. This was the first thing I noticed upon visiting the page, as I read the AnyMobile announcement email on my iPhone. After tapping that "Learn more" button, the image to the right is what I saw.
What is Flash?
Flash began its life as FutureSplash Animator in April of 1996. For reference, Netscape's Navigator hit 2.0 only the month before, and the first version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer product had been released only seven months before that. Flash started out as a product designed to make it easier to produce graphics for computers back in 1993. Three years later, the company behind this precursor added in frame-by-frame animation capabilities as part of an effort to compete with Macromedia's Shockwave technology. Later that year Macromedia purchased the product outright, and released it as Flash 1.0. The Flash Player browser plugin is bundled with virtually every copy of Mac OS X and Windows, and as a result enjoys a very high adoption rate on the web.
Flash was originally used to put vector-based motion graphics on web pages, but its more common use today is embedded video. Any time you see a YouTube or Vimeo video embedded on a web page, Flash is working behind the scenes to make it viewable. It has enjoyed very high adoption rates for this purpose purely from its ubiquity. While not every computer can play every video file, any computer with the Flash Player can play Flash Video, making it easy to embed video with a high probability of users being able to play it.
When You Need It – and When You Don't
Today, Flash is less necessary. For the most part, we've moved past the splash pages that were so ubiquitous in the early days of the world wide web. For those situations where motion graphics are an important part of the experience, Flash makes sense. The problem with Flash is its continued use in applications where it has no business, as in the case of the Sprint AnyMobile web page. While this is a landing page, and not a full-fledged site in its own regard, I find it amusing that the agency that built the page never considered that iPhone owners might be viewing the site on their handheld devices. Whereas an argument could be made that visiting a site where Flash is required might make an iPhone owner question his or her choice, the reality is that no iPhone owner is going to switch to another mobile device on the basis of Flash support. As both a Sprint customer and an AT&T customer, the end result is a feeling that Sprint doesn't really understand my needs.
The AnyMobile page doesn't have anything on it where - in my opinion - Flash was the only way to accomplish the desired end product. It's a largely bog-standard design that - while reasonably attractive - could have easily been built using the standard web developer tools of HTML and CSS. The brief introductory animations add nothing important to the final experience, and ultimately amount to more losses than probably initially imagined. It isn't possible to copy any text on the page, nor is it possible to use a web browser's "Find" functionality to search for text (try searching for "Sprint" on that page). Worse, this page is completely unusable to anyone using a screen reader (the visually disabled). There is also the searchability of Flash content, which - while improving - is still generations behind the searchability of properly built HTML pages.
Flash has its place on the web, and will continue to do so for some time. Smart agencies know where Flash belongs, and more importantly, where it doesn't. Flash is best used sparingly, and to maximum effect. If your agency is trying to sell you on a lot of expensive Flash work, be sure to take into consideration the needs of your disabled constituents. Ask yourself if the content in the Flash needs to be something Google can find. Above all, ensure you aren't losing more than you gain in the proposition. It is very easy to be impressed with Flash-based animations, but few of them add something truly useful to an end-user's experience. With netbooks becoming more prominent, there is also an argument to be made against Flash on a performance basis. Flash content can drain an end-user's laptop battery quite quickly.
In the end, standards-based tools will likely replace Flash. A great deal of effort is being put into tools and technologies to make Flash-like experiences a reality on web browsers without the need for plugins. For some great examples of what is possible in a web browser today, check out Google's Chrome Experiments web site.
About the Author: Joseph Jaramillo
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