This is a multi-part article. Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

If you missed yesterday’s post, I’m ranting about a recent article on Smashing Magazine which featured “50 Beautiful Flash Websites”. The main thrust of my rant is this: many of these 50 sites are not great examples of Flash use. Yesterday I mentioned two sites that I considered examples of BAD Flash implementation. Today I have two more.

http://www.infinitcolours.com

infinitcolours

First unforgiveable sin: this site features not one, but two “enter pages”– you know, those pages that present themselves before you with one link: “ENTER SITE”, if you’re lucky, or some other nonsense like “CHOOSE YOUR ELEMENT!” (What the heck? Isn’t it bad enough that you have an enter page? Can’t you make the text say something meaningful?) As if I had navigated to this address but didn’t really want to enter the site? What else am I going to do? Why are you making me click again? Is your site really so bad that you have to warn your users before they come in? Okay, infiticolours.com, I concede that the second enter page does indeed contain a language option, which I suppose is pretty important, but not only do I have to click on the language, then I have to click enter again? Really?

I guess the enter page on Flash sites is a relic to the old days when you’d have to prompt your users to install Flash to see your content… but with a market penetration of something like 99.6% now, I’d say that’s a moot point. Anyone who doesn’t have Flash installed is making that choice deliberately. And in any case, infinitcolours.com, you aren’t providing the opportunity to install Flash here, are you? No, you’re just making me click through hoops like a trained pony before you grace me with the content of your site. Gee thanks.

Second unforgivable sin: I’m ready to see the site, and I’ve “ENTER” link and you… what the heck? Are you really opening a popup? I click “ENTER” again and… what is this? Now you’ve gone fullscreen on me? What are you doing? Are you trying to make me hate you? NEVER EVER EVER mess with the user’s window. Popups went out of style, oh, ten years ago. And sure, you think your site looks better in fullscreen– so provide a fullscreen option for the user to click, but for Pete’s sake! don’t make the choice for them.

Third unforgiveable sin: Okay, I’m finally at the content. What is this crap music? How do I turn it off? One, two, three clicks before I can finally pause the screeching racket.

I don’t know what it is about people thinking that a full-flash site somehow requires music. Almost all of the “50 Beautiful Flash Sites” have music blaring at me as soon as I enter the site. Why is this something people have made a required association with a Flash site? You can put music on any website… but why is it that no one does, except on Myspace, or on Full-Flash sites? I’ll tell you why: because it’s annoying and stupid.

Nowadays, even video ads have the smarts not to play their audio without the user’s permission. You know what I’m talking about: the video ads that play silently until you mouse over them… that’s an example of being attuned to the user. You know that when advertising people are ahead of you on the curve, you have a problem. Come on, people, if even annoying web ads can figure this out, why can’t you? I don’t want to hear your music! We all know that music is a very subjective thing: why would you risk immediately alienating your users by playing music they very well might hate, right as soon as they enter your site? And if you feel you REALLY have to play music, please at least make it really easy and obvious how to turn it off.

Other than those THREE unforgivable sins, the site is okay, I guess. I mean, personally I think the navigation looks like a preteen designed it, and the transitions are a bit cheezy, but that’s all a matter of personal taste. And I admit my taste was probably heavily influenced by the fact that (because of those two unforgiveable sins) by the time I got to actually looking at the content I was pretty grumpy.

http://www.theologos.gr/

theologos

It took me almost 90 seconds from entering the page to get to view an actual piece of jewellery for this Jewellery Store site (and that’s not including loading time. Lord have mercy if you have a slow connection!) There were lots of animations and effects: cool little particles and flowers and text, fading in and out and zooming around. I’m sure this is exactly the kind of site I’d want to go to if I was a jewellery connaisseur and I’d settled down at my computer on a cold winter evening with a sifter of brandy, ready for a few long hours basking in the mellow glow of my monitor.

But I, on the other hand, am sitting in my office, just a guy checking stuff out on the internet. I don’t want to settle down for an hour on your site, I just want to see what you’ve got. Why can’t you show it to me?

I’m all for the transitions… they are often what makes a Flash site really pop. But if rolling from one menu item to the next takes a full three seconds, you’ve gone too far. It takes at least 15 seconds for me to even read the menu options, because the actual meaningful menu text is the last to show up– first I get to read totally useless titles like “Desire” and “Perfection”. I should be able to see the menu items at a glance so I can click where I want to go.

theologos.gr is a great example of a “go there once” site. Can you imagine having to navigate through this site on a regular basis? It takes forever to get anywhere at all; if you’re in a section there is no quick return to the main menu; there is no deep linking. I’ve already spent more time on this site than I would ever wish on anyone.

Tip to Flash Designers: don’t make your site the equivalent of water torture.

End Rant! Whew, I got pretty worked up that time! Next post, some examples of not-too-bad Flash sites from the list.