Animation in Website Design

Using applications such as Macromedia Flash for designing an entire website offers an attractive package without much practical usability. Using Flash to enhance your HTML-based site provides the simplicity of HTML navigation with the creative look of Flash. While Flash offers a rich visual and/or auditory experience for your website, you must always put your customers' needs and wants first. Of course, your customers WANT to find your site sharp, attractive, and interesting. However, your customers NEED to find the information they came for quickly and easily in a usable way.

Flash as the Major Design Principle

Navigation/Design/Web Fundamentals – While Flash has adapted to using most Web Browsers' navigation tools, the use of navigation inside a Flash-based website is more variable than in HTML. Websites, however, should be designed with certain standards and expectations so that users find websites easy to use. In Flash, the standards and expectations of navigation and design are less distinct.

In business, this can create a rift between you and your customers. If your customers cannot navigate your site easily and find the information they want quickly, they'll find another site that will. Balancing usability and aesthetics is an important skill in web design. Flash is a design program where aesthetics far outweigh usability.

Speed – Flash-based sites take a long time to load and take up a large amount of bandwidth. People going to business websites are trying to obtain information in what should be an easy and quick way. If loading has them waiting for even the most basic homepage information to display, they'll find another site that provides the information faster.

Search Engines – Search Engines search the web looking for certain words or phrases. If a site is created in Flash, words and phrases have become graphics. Flash-based sites are ranked very low on all Search Engines as their metatags and content cannot be searched nearly as easily as in HTML-based sites.

As a business website, your site must be at the top of the Search Engine rankings to get noticed. Understand that with Flash, your site may look very creative and different, but if it never shows up in Search Engine rankings, who is going to see it?
See Solving the Mystery of Search Engines and Rankings.

Updating – Updating a Flash-based site can take twice as long to update as an HTML-based website. Certain tools, software, skills, and coding are necessary for updating a Flash-based site while HTML is easy to use and can be edited with simple applications like Notepad.

Your business' website must constantly be up-to-date to be used as a reliable tool for customers. This means constant updating must be a part of your website's maintenance. Flash updates require more down time and more skilled designers to complete.

Interactivity/Animation/Distraction – Of course, creating new and interesting websites is what any web designer attempts to do. In the case of business websites however, the use of interactivity and animations may become a distraction. Customers have come to your business' site to find information about your products and services. They didn't come to find a distracting animation of your products' advertisements. While the occasional professional animation of your logo or product in use may be helpful, distracting advertisements and pointless décor can lead to a customer to leave your site.

Flash as the Minor Design Principle

Now, with all the problems designing an entire site in Flash can create, using Flash sparingly in the framework of an HTML-based site can give your business' site the professionalism and charisma you need. The simplicity and flexibility of HTML offers the standards that customers on the web have come to expect, while inviting newer, cutting-edge applications into its code. Using Flash in defined areas of HTML can give your site a more innovative look and feel without giving up your hard-earned usability and Search Engine rankings. Using Flash to design minor aspects of your site can have more positive effects:

Presentation – Using Flash as only a window, a small animation can display your business' product in action or how the parts of a product fit together. Instead of being distracting or merely to monetarily boast, it's providing some of the information customers are looking for. An important part of Flash is that it has meaning in its use. When a Flash animation is used for show, it has gone from usable to distracting.

Minimal Content – In some cases, a small simple store, restaurant, or service cannot really translate well to a website. Some businesses have little information to share in this medium, but still require a presence on the web to be noticed and draw in customers. When the core content is minimal, animations and more creative navigation can be used to add interest and significance. A site like this needs to be created to ask the customer to dig deeper and find the business since it cannot be set clearly on the web.

Attention – Certain sections of a page may require attention from all customers, such as a warning or cancellation. A distracting animation draws the eye away from information for something like an advertisement. This attention-seeking animation can be set to offer a form of the information they are looking for on your site. It isn't so much that an animation is used; it is how it is used and what it means to the customer.

Updating – Flash animations should be something that are semi-permanent. They are difficult to update, but when used in only a frame of an HTML-based webpage, all information around it can be updated easily.

Interactive Games – This is for the lighter side of business, but should be taken seriously. Looking at the demographics of your business and how your customers are using it, helps determine whether they are truly seeking information or looking for amusement. Children will want games and adults will want information. Sometimes you have to get through one to get to the other. Offering small interactive games can attract attention to your site, but only if your customers use them. Know your customers and you will know what they want.

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Applications like Macromedia Flash obviously have a useful place in web design. However, when these applications take over web design, they can be abused and cause your customers to avoid your business' website. The proper balance of functionality and aesthetics is crucial to your business website's success. As long as the tools for both are tailored to your business, you can have a practical, easy-to-use website with a rich visual and/or auditory experience.

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