I don't hate Flash; I just hate what it does to designers

Issue 24 of The Sensible Internet Design Newsletter follows.

As always, you can catch up on back issues in the archive, or subscribe free to get future mailings. Read on for this issue in its entirety ...

Note: Check out a good article on optimizing Flash objects for Internet search engines. (Steve Outing posted the link in E-Media Tidbits the other day.)

I don't hate Flash; I just hate what it does to designers

Rich-media eye-candy becomes a crutch when interface workflows fail ... not that you'll win any water-cooler points with that sentiment around the office.

Let's get this on the record: I respect the many capabilities and possibilities offered by Macromedia Flash software and the components it can generate for Web pages. And I truly respect the large community of talented artists and designers who can work comfortably with the powerful features of Flash.

But I'm tired of dealing with the effect it has on those designers.

Too easily, it becomes their first line of defense to "save" Web projects that appear to be going astray. It absorbs all their design energies and entices them to disregard the basics -- and simple beauty -- of well-planned hypertext interfaces. A case in point:

At the office, I was asked recently for opinions and guidance on a Web design project sponsored by another department. That department's manager wanted to offer a set of useful interactive tools, Extranet style, to a specific group of our company's customers. The manager hopes the site will be useful and compelling enough to encourage frequent visits by the intended constituents.

I saw the first-round working prototypes, prepared by designers in that department whom I respect greatly, and gave my advice to the project leaders. It's the same advice I'd give any designer building a site that's essentially a software toolbox: Focus screen space and design energy on the tools and related instructions, not on company or service promotions, or "background" graphics laid in just to dress things up. Put hooks to those things, I said, in the context of pages that represent completed workflows for site users, such as confirmation dialogs or status-update screens.

A few days later, I saw the second-round working prototypes and again was asked to offer an opinion. And I did. Now those designers I respect greatly probably don't want to hear my opinion any more.

In the second set of screens, the designers had enlarged the relative amount of space given to the tools or links to the tools. Great. But they had also added a Flash billboard that, in limitless loops of animated text and soft imagery, pulled most attention away from the tools and their related workflows.

Why? I asked. The gist of the answer was: to attract attention, especially to our abilities to design rich-media pages.

At that point, inside my head, I retreated a bit -- remembering that (a) I was asked to advise as a favor, not because I'm a vested party in this project, and (b) these are respected co-workers and friends who fill vital roles for the company. But the old art director's instinct kicked in, and I couldn't help but lay out some of my long-held beliefs about Web interface design:

• Especially on a tools-oriented site, once a patron has landed on an index page, attracting attention no longer should be the goal. Enabling successful workflow means everything from that point on.
• If design requirements for a site include both a tools/interactivity focus and a marketing/promotional focus, make them work together. Promote products or services that will be of interest at specific points in the tools workflow. Amazon.com has this idea down pat -- the further into the buying (or repeat buying) process you go with Amazon, the better the adjacent recommendations of other products will become. It's all handled in context, though, and the promotions never obscure the shopping tools.
• Flash works best when it is used to design timed sequences or animations that present complex, visual information such that it can be more easily understood. But Flash hinders Web workflows when it is used for eye candy, because it diverts attention from visually static but nonetheless vital interface elements.

In past newsletters, I discussed how design vanities lead to vague rationalization for design decisions. I don't believe vanity had anything to do with decisions on this project. Everyone involved was trying to do the right thing.

It was simply a lack of clarity and consensus on the design requirements, which happens often enough to just about all of us, doesn't it? I'm sure I was no help, throwing wrenches into the works after two rapid-fire successions of prototype work.

Absent sufficient clarity and detail, though, the designers' instinct may have been simply to revert to the tool that most often allowed them to create screens with a maximum "coolness factor."

That would be Flash. Thus the name. There's no arguing that Flash wins, hands-down, when the game is attracting attention to a Web page. "Game" is the operative word there, because Flash interfaces of any size can take on the character of little games. Fun. Cool. Eye-catching.

Also, shallow. Distracting. Inefficient. Even with the latest versions of Flash, it is still way too difficult (and therefore less likely to happen on a project) to integrate navigation and data built into the Flash interface with navigation and data that sit outside it, in HTML or supporting databases.

So adding Flash to a Web form page, for example, means either the Flash file is just eye candy, or it has its own navigation workflow that's walled off from the rest of the form. No matter what, the Flash file (because it's handled by a browser plug-in) will not play nice with Cascading Style Sheet controls such as z-index layering. Put a Flash object in the wrong spot on your page and it can even obscure Dynamic HTML form fields.

Beyond the technical details, though, I guess I just wish all designers who work on the Web could take pride and pleasure in enabling workflows and therefore holding attention -- and stop falling back on Flash in order to attract attention.

Loyalty and repeat visits are the rewards, not "oohs" and "aahs."

An exciting weekend on tap

I'm headed to Syracuse, N.Y., on Friday to provide Weblog-style coverage of the Best of Newspaper Design competition judging, sponsored by the Society for News Design and Syracuse University?s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

This is the first time we're trying this at SND, but it should be a blast. Newhouse students and judging assistants will pitch in on the reporting and photography, and I'll be pouring all the news, pictures and tidbits into a brand-new set of templates I built for the SND Web site. We'll try those templates for the first time with this weekend's reports, partly to shake them down and mostly to collect comments on them before rolling out a sitewide redesign this spring.

The judging runs through Monday. Check the SND site for updates all weekend.