Website Design and Use of Flash Elements

Is the use of a flash element or flash website worth the expense?

Basically, it depends on several factors. Flash development can get very expensive, depending on the needs of your website. When planning your website design, you must consider a number of factors, such as:

-The ability of the users to navigate about the website
-The aesthetics of the website
-Search engine readability

1. The ability of users to navigate about the site.

You must consider the end user when developing a website based on flash. Problems that you may encounter include whether or not the user has the correct flash player, the type of internet connection that users utilize, and whether or not you wish to develop a "non-flash" mirror site.

2. The aesthetics of the website.

Without a doubt, a properly designed flash website can be extremely pleasing to the eye, engaging the user in interactivity with pleasing graphics, motion, video, and sound. This is perhaps the most compelling argument for the use of a flash website.

3. Search engine readability.

This is without a doubt the most compelling argument against the use of a flash website. Search engines can't read the flash movie, can't follow it's links, and often a flash website is seen by search engines as just a blank website. The use of a search engine optimization expert can help you get around these obstacles of flash website design.

What about the use of flash elements?

A flash element is basically a flash movie inserted into a "normal" html website. The use of a flash element can provide the eye-pleasing graphics desired, at a lower cost, and makes the site much more search engine friendly as the search engines are able to read the html code of the site (although they still cannot read the flash element). So long as you don't rely on flash elements for navigation, which would prevent search engines from seeing your interior pages, there is no other major obstacle to utilizing such website design techniques, although, as with any website design, it still must be properly optimized for search engines for maximum visibility on the internet.