Flash Design
Flash is a powerful tool that can be used to help businesses produce an attractive web site with strong aesthetic appeal and visual impact.
Before incorporating Flash into a web design, it's important to take care that the finished product is not only attractive, but will serve as a useful tool to both visitors and search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Consider the following:
| What do visitors want? | |
| Web visitors most often want the site to load quickly, present valuable and relevant information, and have simple-to-use navigation. Flash allows designers freedom to create attractive, smooth-flowing animations, buttons, rollovers and banners. However, lengthy animations have the potential to hinder usability and cost a site its visitors. Furthermore, Flash should only be used selectively to enhance a web site rather than as the main attraction since visitors are most likely coming to the site for content, rather than for animation. | |
| Will using Flash be distracting? | |
| Too many instances of movement on a page or movements that are too fast can easily frustrate visitors and detract from the message that is being conveyed. Subtle, smooth animations provide a calming effect and afford the user an overall better experience. | |
| Will using Flash help a site visitor contact you? | |
| Oftentimes Flash is used to draw the visitor's eye to the navigation buttons, including call-to-action options such as contact forms. While Flash can draw attention, it's important that the buttons be clear, easy-to-read and easy-to-find. Flash should never be used in such a way that important buttons are sometimes hidden or unavailable. They should be visible and clickable at all times. | |
| How will using Flash help with your search engine optimization? | |
| Although search engines like Google have some Flash indexing capabilities, other search engines are still very limited. Creating a site entirely in Flash could inhibit the site from achieving desired rankings (and you from getting desired leads). |
Overall, Flash is a very effective tool that can give sites greater aesthetic appeal and a higher level of user interactivity. However, it should only be used selectively to enhance a website and not as the main attraction.
Pilot Fish's approach to flash design is to create page elements that draw attention without interfering with the site's message or its ability to perform on the search engines.
Click on the images below to view some samples of flash designs:
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Brampton Engineering | |
Butler MacDonald | |
Hi-Tech Plastics | |
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Independent Energy Consultants |
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Montachem International |
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Pilot Fish | |
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To add SEO-friendly
flash elements to your web site, contact Pilot Fish
or call