BigBear Design

We’ve heard of it countless times before, yet it is a subject that deserves to have at least one article about it in every blog in the Internet: Flash is Evil, or to be specific, Websites That Force Us To Use Flash are Evil. No matter how many Flash sites are made or how many awards these sites get, Flash will never replace HTML.

Not every visitor that goes to your website is already sold on you. Some would want to read up before they buy your product, contract your services, or subscribe to your feed. Some could’ve just stumbled upon your website and have no idea who you are. Imagine setting up the layout of your store so a customer can walk in and immediately see the merchandise so they’ll know what you’re selling. As Seth Godin nicely puts it in Big Red Fez, having Flash on your site is like “requiring your customers to put on special goggles to see your store’s merchandise”. You’ve worked hard to get people into your website, don’t give them a reason to walk out.

To be fair, Flash in websites does have its uses and it does them well. The video players for sites like YouTube and Google Videos, for example. I don’t know why some still use Windows Media Player on their sites, which barely plays anything.