Well, this ‘dream’ surgery is available now. It’s called your web site. In this issue, we’ll look at the power of a highly creative online presence and how you can harness that power by using the most appropriate web development options.
These include traditional static HTML-based web design or animated Flash-based sites. The world wide web essentially began as a medium for the exchange of research papers and is still firmly rooted in these humble, text-based origins.
As technology has progressed however, rich new media options have emerged. While purists who value speed and usability above all else are reluctant to jettison a word-based web; equally, the design conscious believe that just because the web was born in text, need not mean it remain in text.
With animation becoming increasingly popular for interactive website design, online experiences can now deliver information in thoughtful, subtle and effective ways that can literally be mesmerising.
Yet can Flash satisfy both the need for usability and creative design? The first generations of animated web content were criticised for poor usability; often including gratuitous animation, sound overload and non-standard interface elements.
Other concerns centred on the way that Flash, as an add on (plug-in) to the web browser, ‘broke’ basic web functionality, such as use of the browser’s back button and lack of interaction with search engines.
These critiques were based on the premise that Flash was being used frivolously and that it should not be a replacement for basic HTML-based access to information on the web.
Owing to both its early limitations and its widespread misuse, there was little recognition that Flash might allow for a type of interactive user experience unavailable with conventional HTML.
For Further Details on Multimedia Use Within Website Design >>
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