Flash is dead... or is it?
A few years back almost every developer made something in Flash. We all hated it, but we had to do it. The client would come into the office and say something like:
I want my website made in flash. I want an awesome intro and a lot of animations and videos.
We all hated those clients, but then we gained some balls and started making the clients see the other side of things.
- The google bot doesn’t like flash.
- The end user don’t like flashy designs with lot’s of animations.
- Flash requires a 3rd party plugin installed on your browser.
The thing is, we’re now seeing a whole different breed of clients. Now they come to you with random words they hear from their friends or colleges at work.
Now they want:
- Responsive websites;
- The application has to work well on all the devices;
- Has to be fast;
- Has to run on IE6/7;
- Animate all the things;
- I don’t want any page loads (everything must be in ajax);
I think you already see the problem here, the client don’t really know what they want. They know these words and they just want what they think everyone has.
Problem is that we as developers, need to make money. Sometimes, our bosses are consultants that don’t really know what that means and just want to sell something.
So we have to do these things. We have to animate all the elements and we’re seeing these websites everyday.
Just look at those trends on Awwwards.
Now look at the first website on the that list Hello Monday.
It has everything a flash website used to have.
- Annoying loading when the website first loads;
- It has to explain to the user how to navigate the website;
- Animations everywhere;
- Everything needs a small loading while opening;
- You navigate on the website and nothing happens on the url;
I think the only thing missing is the music playing on the background.
I guess something has gone terrible wrong. When flash died we had a good couple of years. People were making websites where content was the thing that matter.
Now with HTML5, CSS3 and how javascript is evolving we’re again overdoing things.
ps: Aparently I commited a brain fart and the example I showed is actually a flash website. Anyways, the website that won the Site of the Day that day was the “Just a reflektor”. On this one you can see the same exact problems. Sorry about that.