#39: Flash Troll Generator

The dramatic increase of flashy stuff from Flash or Adobe, or whatever, is more than annoying. Especially on serious news sites where one is trying to read.

Why don't they just set it to play through once, twice. Or better, yet... ALLOW ME TO STOP THE BLASTED THINGS!

I leave with a really bad feeling about the advertiser and the site... Now really... Is THAT what they want?

...my point is that "users" determine what works and what doesn't. If a users experience is improved by Lazlo or Flash (but I've yet to hear a user finding value in Flash), then you are on the right track. Most, if not all of us (or is it just my luck) have experienced customers/bosses/etc wanting to glamorize their web sites with useless garbage that more often than not would drive users away.

I get that it's a joke, but couldn't help myself since it's a pet peeve of mine.

You do realize this is a joke, right? Oliver is the architect behind Lazlo, so he *might* have a different opinion on flash personally ;)

People visit sites to get to what the site offers of interest to them, which is not Flash or any other "high definition web". Give people what they come for. If you can't add to what they come for by using some form of "high definition web", then you're not in touch with reality if you still insist on "high definition web".

I hate the fact that flash has replaced animated-gifs b/c they are not stoppable. With animated-gif you had a chance to stop the flipping ad by hitting ESC. With that dreaded flash you only hav the chance to either resize the window (made impossible by putting ads in the middle of the text) or have an empty notepad ready to overlay the ad. And yes, even rather readworthy sites are often stuffed with animated ads. It keeps you from actually reading the texe you came for.

OTOH there are some nice flash- and shockwave apps out there.

Repeating "flash is inaccessible" will not make it so.... ;-)

If you'll read, or search, you'll find that the "predictable stream of linear text" theory of accessibility is handled very well by SWF technologies. If you'll search a little finer you'll find that getting BEYOND long linear English actually improves accessibility.

I don't have time to retype for you right now (searching "dowdell accessibility" will pull up some previous retypings), but I'll do a special "Mudpit" version of reality for you when I get back from Kowloon next week. Deal? :D

jd/mm

Flash sucks period.

At the very least, we haven't seen any evidence (starry-eyed visions don't count) that a Flash-based "higher definition web" is the future, or should be.

I'm sure most everyone would agree Flash has potential. But the agreement generally ends there.

Agreed, a higher definition web is the way to go. But I don't think Flash is the route you take to get there.

What exactly do you not agree with? Higher definition doesn't have to be inaccessible, slow and intruding. True, there are good uses for Flash, but they're mostly just games.