No one likes your Flash-based site
A few days ago a friend of mine decided he wanted smoothy. He decided that Jamba Juice would do nicely. He then made the mistake of going to their web site which is a Flash-based design.
First he had to wait about a minute for the Flash code to load in his browser. After waiting through the splash page animation to finish creating the display, he saw a link for locations. He clicked that link and then had to wait another 30 seconds for the flash animation to load the next screen.
Your buisness site does not need animation. What it does need is the ability to provide information your customers need in an easily understandable way. Jamba Juice is not the only violator. Too many businesses are using Flash-based websites these days.
Oh sure, Flash is fancy. User’s don’t like it though. Flash is slow. If your potential customer has a slow connection, that person is going to have to wait for your fancy website to load. In the example I gave, we had access to a broadband connection and still had to wait to get to useful content. Even a graphics intensive html site will load faster than flash. Flash based sites are made for the site owner’s desires instead of the needs of the audience – or potential customers.
Business owners, your customers do not care that you put eye candy on your web site. Flash is good technology when used appropriately. Basing your entire site on it is not an appropriate use. Give your customers an easily accessible site where information they want can be found quickly.
Oh, and my friend got so frustrated with waiting for that web site to load, he never did go to Jamba Juice that day. Don’t let Flash ruin your sales too.