Flash rocks. The simple-to-use software has enabled high school zine publishers and giant multinationals alike to create splashy Web sites complete with audio, full-motion graphics, animation, neon fonts and fancy rollovers. What's more, these hot design elements can be viewed via a dialup modem. More than a half-million Web developers use Flash as their primary design tool, as do seven of the 10 most visited sites on the Internet.
"There are other tools that can do cooler things, but with Flash you don't have to stare at lines of code to move a ball across a screen," says Wynn Rujiraviriyapinyo, director of Internet media design for Los Angeles-based Tree Media Group. "It brought non-geeks into computer design."
In short, since its introduction in 1996, Macromedia (MACR)'s Flash has done no less than foster the democratization of Web design. Whether that's a good thing, however, is an ongoing debate. A little power can be a dangerous thing, especially in the hands of amateurs. Flash, notes Tree Media CTO Joel Schonbrunn, is "easy to learn, but hard to master."
Critics have dumped on Flash for encouraging gratuitous animation and consuming resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core values and promoting, rather than inhibiting, interactivity. A browser's "back" button can't be used in a Flash environment, for example, and searching a Flash page is awkward at best.
For these reasons Flash has engendered a love-hate relationship with both Web designers and surfers. Months after Macromedia introduced the newest version of the software, Flash 5, last September, its pros and cons were still being fiercely debated in online forums such as ShockFusion.com.
Flash loyalist "Cthulhu" praised it for enabling users to "create an interface that is easy to understand," saying it "simulates real-world experience." At the same time, he decried "ludicrously cryptic navigational elements in some Flash sites" that "expose an underlying arrogance on the part of the designers."
Flash 5 may mollify critics - or it may anger them as never before. It boasts beefed-up virtual reality features allowing designers to create a simulated 3D environment with rotating objects. It also employs ActionScript, a Java-like language that considerably boosts Flash's interactive potential. When Flash 5 is used in conjunction with Flash Generator, Web designers can create user-specific Flash content, enabling consumers to, say, try on clothes by scanning a picture of themselves and then sending it to a site.
Whatever its virtues or shortcomings, Flash remains the tool of choice for snazzying up sites. The trick is to add graphic muscle without overwhelming the site and distracting the user from the content. "You need to direct Flash," says Tree Media's Schonbrunn, "you can't let it direct you."
Marc Weingarten is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.
