Flash Loons

[Darin McGrew]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

I realize that most here are Luddites, but surely even the most die hard
Luddite occasionally wishes to watch video online. 8-)

Sure, and Flash is great for that.

But when I go to a restaurant chain's site to find a location close to my
home, I don't want to be entertained with a creative Flash-based interface.
I want to click on a couple normal links, enter my city or ZIP code, and
get a list of addresses. If I can't do that without the latest version of
Flash, or if I can't do that when Flash is disabled/unavailable, then the
web designer has screwed up.

IMHO, and all that.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanford alumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp. com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Cheaters never win; they just finish first." - Johhny Hart

[Harlan Messinger]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:09:17 +0100, Alan J. Flavell in

>What's so wonderful about the latest version, anyway, as compared with
>one a year or so old? After all, MSIE is (in most material respects)
>scarcely improved in the last 5 years or so, but it's still possible
>(with minor restrictions) to use it to browse a properly-made
>specificatio n-conforming web page. The whole web is built on the
>concept of version compatibility and graceful fallback. If I'm to
>deduce anything from this insistence on always using the latest
>version, then Flash is not.

>
The same can be said for JAVA, for some applications one needs to update
to the latest JRE, same with the plethora of other uses for plugins,
<ieQuickTime, Windows Media Player. Flash is hardly an exception in
this regard.

Indeed. It *isn't* a good idea, for mass-market applications, to
incorporate new technologies the moment they're ready. (Applications for
controlled environments where the upgraded client platforms will be
available are another matter, as are applications that simply couldn't
be built, or couldn't be made adequately usable or effective, until the
new technologies became available.)

Imagine it's the US in 1955, and some department store decides in the
name of simplification to accept payment for merchandise only in the
form of major credit cards. Never mind that almost nobody HAD major
credit cards back then; BankAmeriCard (now Visa) and MasterCharge (now
MasterCard) didn't even exist yet, and Diner's Club and American Express
were new.

Now imagine it's 1994, and United Airlines decides to sell tickets only
through its web site. Never mind that hardly anyone had Internet access
at that point.

Good business sense? Good ideas?

Now, think back to the late 1980s when Federal Express announced that it
would no longer accept cash for postage, and the late 1990s when Amazon
became one of the first major stores to sell merchandise only on-line.

In 1995 Amazon.com opened as a store that did business only on-line. An
importance difference between that and my airline scenario is that it
didn't choke off a large portion of an existing line of business; it was
a brand new venture, and in addition *they fully expected to lose money
for several years*.

These latter two scenarios are examples of more prudent introduction of
newer technologies. Of course, many argued that Amazon.com wasn't being
prudent! But at least they weren't haughtily telling everybody to
upgrade. They took the approach of making themselves available, and
waited till people were ready to come to them.

[Eric Lindsay]

Re: Flash Loons

In article <slrnebpoqg.bdj .Stephen.D.Alle n@sweetpig.dynd ns.org>,
Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:47:56 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

Rik wrote:

>

Eric Lindsay wrote:
> Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:
>>
>>Here's a nice example of an RIA;
>><http://www.asfusion.co m/apps/homelocator/>
>>
>A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
>example?
>
No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...

>

Turn off JavaScript, and it is a blank page. Double Trouble.

>
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days. You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?

I don't turn Javascript on when surfing unknown sites. Leaving it off
reduces annoying advertising. Like graphics, it is only a keystroke away
if I do need it. I have seen some wonderful Flash pages (and QuickTime
movies, etc.) however most Flash pages are pretty average, and not worth
the download time.

>
Come one man, give your head a shake. Accessiblity isn't the end all be
all. Usability trumps it. And don't argue that Flash isn't usable --
That's entirely up to the designer and the designer's expertise.

Accessibility of web pages isn't just a good idea, it is a legal
requirement for all web pages (not just government pages) where I live
and work. Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.

I have no idea whether Flash can work on say a aural browser, but I know
it doesn't work on my PDA nor my phone. The pages that I write fall back
gracefully on every device I can test. I can't think of any other way to
keep them legal.

--

http://www.ericlindsay.com

[Jack]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:32:57 +0100, Jack in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>Stephen wrote:

>>You have no idea how scientific this business is.

>

>You don't seem to know what "science" is.

>

>>Add to that a healthy dose of actuarial science. Lets call it
>>what it is, propaganda, and some types of it are very effective.

>

>Propaganda, hype, whatever. Everyone knows that suckers exist;
>there are plenty of them, so it's said ("one born every minute").
>The question isn't whether marketer's hype works (FSVO "works");
>obviously it does. The question is whether some particular kind of
>hype works as well as its proponents claim.

>

>I'm saying that Macromedia Flush probably doesn't work as well as
>you believe.

>

>And I cite *your* reference:
>http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/

>

>Try it on a browser without Flush support.

>
Bzzt We are disucssing Flash in the RIA context in this thread. So of
course you need Flash. Please stop behaving like a twit, you've lost
all credibility with moi -- Goodbye !
>
If you don't care to use Flash fine, but don't critique what you have
no clue of.
>
>

I believe we are discussing the authoring of HTML on thw worldwide web.
We must be, because to be discussing proprietary movie formats would be
a tad off-topic!

As it happens, I do have Flush installed; it's installed on IE, which I
use only for testing. For production browsing, it provides me with no
benefits, and the constant upgrade nags are just a nuisance, so it's not
installed. But the point is (as so many have pointed out): whatever
happened to graceful fallback? The URL I cited was the one *you* cited
as an example of excellence.

BTW: you have no idea what clues I do and don't posess. You know very
little about me at all. You aren't in a position to patronise me.

--
Jack.

[John Hosking]

Re: Flash Loons

Michael Vilain wrote:

Here's a great example of what could have been a simple informational
site turned into a "new age experience" by some stupid designer:
>

http://www.michaelsheateaching.com/

>
I've sent email after email to the guy telling him his site is hard to
use, takes forever to load on slow links, and is being totally ignored
by Google. He doesn't seem to care.
>

So he probably also doesn't care that his site does not come up at all
when I Google the phrase "Shea Educational Group"[1] (200 results) or
"Shea Education Group"[2] (4 results).

This is good: It means that fewer people will be annoyed by the site.

[1] the name claimed on the site (inside the Flash) as the site owner.
[2] the name mentioned in the meta data.

--
John

[Chaddy2222]

Re: Flash Loons


Stephen wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:47:56 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

Rik wrote:

>

Eric Lindsay wrote:
> Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:
>>
>>Here's a nice example of an RIA;
>><http://www.asfusion.co m/apps/homelocator/>
>>
>A totally blank, invalid page that accomplishes nothing is a nice
>example?
>
No, the fact that it takes 45 seconds to load with my connection,
allthough my connection is certainly not slow...

>

Turn off JavaScript, and it is a blank page. Double Trouble.

>
So what ? No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days. You think I'm going to lose sleep over the 5 that do ?
>
Come one man, give your head a shake. Accessiblity isn't the end all be
all. Usability trumps it. And don't argue that Flash isn't usable --
That's entirely up to the designer and the designer's expertise.

You haft to be jokeing!.
Flash is one of the werst technologies that one could use for any form
of user interface.
Though it is fine for items such as video.
But, HTML + CSS works fine for the most part.
Regarding web accessibility, it is a legal requirement, groups have
been taken to court and lost over such issues.
Generally, I find that if a site is accessible, then it's useable by
default, if a site fails to be accessible, then you can place money on
the fact that a lot of people (pertencial customers) in some cases,
won't be able to access and or use the site, that also goes for people
without disabilities.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Flash Loons


Eric Lindsay wrote:

Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.

If you ever find linkable resources to actual case law on this, I for
one would appreciate the links.

Here in the UK there seems to be a vast gulf betweeen legal
requirements (almost entirely ignored) and real hard evidence of cases
enforcing them. As a result there's not much you can say to a project
manager with a "Stuff acccessibility, do it in Flash" attitude.

[Chaddy2222]

Re: Flash Loons


Andy Dingley wrote:

Eric Lindsay wrote:

Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
to access your web pages.

>
If you ever find linkable resources to actual case law on this, I for
one would appreciate the links.
>
Here in the UK there seems to be a vast gulf betweeen legal
requirements (almost entirely ignored) and real hard evidence of cases
enforcing them. As a result there's not much you can say to a project
manager with a "Stuff acccessibility, do it in Flash" attitude.

I just found a good link which talks at great length about The Sydney
2000 case, (regarding the Olimpic Website.

http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/bat2001f.html

You will need to scrool down to the right heading.
It's an old article, but it's good.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:40:58 +0100, Alan J. Flavell in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Stephen wrote:

>[of Flashblock:]

>Well doesn't it allow you to disable it on a per site basis ?

>Sure: it can be turned off on a per-instance basis, and sites can be
>added to a whitelist if one wishes to.

>However, at this point in the proceedings, I'm at a new, unknown and
>as-yet untrusted web site. Seeing that they couldn't even get the
>first bit right, would I *really* want to go to the trouble of
>unblocking them? I'm more likely to return to the search engine, and
>try one of their competitors.

Incidentally what exactly are you protecting yourself against ? I'm really
curious. Seems to be a little extreme, Alan. Do you surf with Javascript
turned off to ?

You don't have to answer those -- just being rhetorical.

I can see folks not wanting to see some of the annoying animation in
Flash Ads, but I don't understand why one wants to block Flash entirely,
without seeing if there is anything there to annoy them first. It's
asine, in my opinion.

In terms of security, there are no known exploits for Flash 8 &>, in fact
the security model is quite strict. One can either run a .swf from
the Internet, or the file system -- But not both. Prior to Flash 8, one
could do both.

>And apropos search engines: the sites are right there on the record
>which were stupid enough to flame the indexing bot for not having the
>right version of Flash installed.

<snip>

>Have you any *idea* how the WWW was originally intended?

Yes most of us older farts have a clue and have watched the process.

>One of the early browsers (Viola) had a kind of client-side scripting,
>and used a kind of stylesheet for presentation, and had interactive
>objects which could be incorporated into web pages. This repeated
>myth that the web was purely a textual medium is really that, a myth.

Uh no it's not, I was around then to. Sure, there were examples of this,
but this was definitely NOT the majority.

>-- As simply a medium to exchange scientific papers/research.

>No-no, not only. Meetings, engineering designs, clubs, canteen menus,
>all kinds of activities, many of them *associated* with the science,
>and many of them just part of real life ;-)

The point I'm attempting to propagate, perhaps too subtly, is the
following;

Primarily in the inception it was used by Academics for academic
purposes. HTML was never designed with Marketing in mind, and whether
one agrees with the trend or not, it's irrefutable that the majority of
paying jobs in this genre are from/for companies wishing to market their
services/branding via the Internet. So, the Designer/Developer today is
concerned with the marketing aspect of using the WWW -- And everything
this might entail, including providing a rich user experience as
demanded by the focus/scope of the project and/or the client.

>That was why HyperTextMarkup Language was developed, as you probably
>know.

>Sure - I was at CERN, off and on, around that time, and following
>developments with close interest.

Nod.

>So sorry, I don't' accept the premise that such technologies should
>remain stagnant.

>Who ever suggested that they should? An appropriate degree of version
>compatibilit y and graceful fallback is *still* beneficial.

Alan are you reading the same thread as me ? Re read the responses. The
tone is definitely anti-flash, and not just because of splash pages.

If most respondents in this thread would take a deep breath and step
back, they would probably realize that most of their counter arguments
are about poor design, not the use of Flash. In the end, it's how a
designer/developer knows his/her tools and how to maximize the use of
those tools for a successful user experience. Marketing research is
part and parcel of this.

This dogma about using only HTML/CSS/Jscript and everything else is shite is
loony and unrealistic. I've been here long enough to realize this is
the prevailing wisdom by a few of the regulars.

>What we're talking about here is welcoming the new visitor with the
>content that they need, for deciding whether this is a site they would
>like to use, and offering them the various other media which are on
>offer, *whatever* those may be.

For sure, and I didn't say anything to the contrary. :)

>What we're arguing against is an entry screen which has nothing of
>value on it, except for those who consented to the author's favourite
>media beforehand.

And I would agree with that, however I'm not so sure the majority here
agree with _just_ this premise. It appears that most dislike Flash
simply because it isn't HTML. Hell, just look at the subject ...

I suggested this at least once, but the loons kept arguing.

BTW I'm not suggesting that all involved in this thread are loons, just
some of the arguments against, were clearly not well researched, prior
to posting and more than one didn't have their facts straight.

<shrug>I'm done, fini.

Adios.

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:47:06 +0000 (UTC), Darin McGrew in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

>I realize that most here are Luddites, but surely even the most die hard
>Luddite occasionally wishes to watch video online. 8-)

>Sure, and Flash is great for that.

>But when I go to a restaurant chain's site to find a location close to my
>home, I don't want to be entertained with a creative Flash-based interface.
>I want to click on a couple normal links, enter my city or ZIP code, and
>get a list of addresses. If I can't do that without the latest version of
>Flash, or if I can't do that when Flash is disabled/unavailable, then the
>web designer has screwed up.

Perhaps it depends on the situation. Flash is no different than any
other part of the user interface. The same thing that annoys one with
with Flash can easily be accomplished with Javascript, JAVA, and the
wrong use of colour. So, it's not Flash at fault.

I quite willing to admit that their are bad interface designers.

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

>Accessibilit y of web pages isn't just a good idea, it is a legal
>requirement for all web pages (not just government pages) where I live
>and work. Statute law and case law both say disabled people must be able
>to access your web pages.

Well it's not, here. Don't forget that only 1 billion people are on the
Internet and the earth has what 5+ billion ? Accessiblity is putting the
cart before the horse in my opinion.

I don't beleive that accessibility mandated is going to be widespread in
the near to medium future in Europe or in North America. Even government
work here doesn't have this requirement -- And I'm happy about that.

There is a telephone for people that have accessibility issues.

>I have no idea whether Flash can work on say a aural browser, but I know
>it doesn't work on my PDA nor my phone. The pages that I write fall back
>gracefully on every device I can test. I can't think of any other way to
>keep them legal.

PDAs are another story. Flash has to be written a little differently for
PDAs, and of course the PDA has to have a browser that supports
multi-media plugins. Browser support in PDAs at this point in time isn't
mature, and that holds true for plugin support.

But Flash is going to be big way to present data to PDAs going forward.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Flash Loons


Stephen wrote:

I don't beleive that accessibility mandated is going to be widespread in
the near to medium future in Europe or in North America.

Yes, stuff the disabled. They all live on benefits and don't have any
money to spend anyway (you wouldn't believe how many large retailers
still believe this)

There is a telephone for people that have accessibility issues.

In that case, why not save all the website costs and go to
telephone-only sales?

Tell you what - you preserve yourr Dezyner Ethics, Stylistic Purity and
no doubt your Hoxton Fin too. In the meantime we'll take the money of
the people who can use our site but not yours.

[Matt]

Re: Flash Loons

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:21:26 +0100, Jack wrote:

>On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:32:57 +0100, Jack wrote:

>>I'm saying that Macromedia Flush probably doesn't work as well as you
>>believe.
>>>
>>And I cite *your* reference:
>>http://www.asfusion.com/apps/homelocator/
>>>
>>Try it on a browser without Flush support.

<snip>

As it happens, I do have Flush installed; it's installed on IE, which I
use only for testing. For production browsing, it provides me with no
benefits, and the constant upgrade nags are just a nuisance, so it's not
installed. But the point is (as so many have pointed out): whatever
happened to graceful fallback? The URL I cited was the one *you* cited
as an example of excellence.

My mum was trying to find a shop selling a specific item this morning. I
suggested Fenwick's, since they're local and I thought they'd have it. My
mum said their web site didn't work:

http://www.fenwick.co.uk/

and, on her laptop, it didn't -- just a blank page. Why? Flash wasn't
installed, since her laptop was reinstalled recently and she knows not to
install random programs from within a web browser.

Having looked at the site on a computer with Flash installed, she didn't
miss anything anyway. The main competitors all have their catalogues
online (http://www.johnlewis.com/, http://www.debenhams.com/) so she
probably won't bother looking in Fenwick's.

Even with Flash enabled, the Fenwick's site is useless. Here's some
problems which I find immediately obvious:
* I'm made to watch a stupid slideshow for 10 seconds
* then I have an irritating animated woman on the page (I find the
movement extremely distracting).
* The fonts are small and blurry
* the 'links' aren't obvious (no underline and black) and require two
clicks to activate
* some blue text is a link, some identically styled blue text isn't a
link,
* a tooltip appears everywhere ("Click to activate this control" --
what?)
* I can't use many features of my browser: mostly wherever I'd like to
select some text and right click -- I can't 'copy text to a note', or to
an email, I can't hover over a link and see where it takes me.

Additionally, the site provides little useful information, there's not
even a map to each of the stores, and as I mentioned there is no catalogue.

This appears typical of a Flash-based website: all looks and sparkle
(which isn't even wanted) and little useful content.

£0.02,

--
Matt

[Darin McGrew]

Re: Flash Loons

Re: Flashblock, Alan J. Flavell wrote:

>Sure: it can be turned off on a per-instance basis, and sites can be
>added to a whitelist if one wishes to.
>>
>However, at this point in the proceedings, I'm at a new, unknown and
>as-yet untrusted web site. Seeing that they couldn't even get the
>first bit right, would I *really* want to go to the trouble of
>unblocking them? I'm more likely to return to the search engine, and
>try one of their competitors.

Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

Incidentally what exactly are you protecting yourself against ? I'm really
curious. Seems to be a little extreme, Alan. Do you surf with Javascript
turned off to ?

I'm not Alan, but here's my answer.

Flash is big and bulky and (on a well-designed site) optional. Some of us
still use modems.

Flash is often used for annoying gimmicks. So are animated GIFs. So is
JavaScript. And Flash and JavaScript are often used to "enhance" the user
interface in nonstandard ways, which breaks the user interface for those of
us who are familiar with the standard user interface.

I can see folks not wanting to see some of the annoying animation in
Flash Ads, but I don't understand why one wants to block Flash entirely,
without seeing if there is anything there to annoy them first. It's
asine, in my opinion.

It's easier to disable these technologies and to whitelist the few sites
that use them responsibly, than it is to enable them and to blacklist the
many sites that use them irresponsibly.

If most respondents in this thread would take a deep breath and step
back, they would probably realize that most of their counter arguments
are about poor design, not the use of Flash.

Sure. But disabling Flash, JavaScript, etc. and whitelisting them only for
certain sites is an effective way to combat poor design. Modern browsers
are making this easy to do.

And not all browsers support Flash, JavaScript, etc. And most non-browser
user agents (e.g., Google) don't support them either.

Sites that needlessly require these technologies are broken.

IMHO, and all that.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanford alumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp. com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped." - African Proverb

[Jack]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen wrote:

>
I can see folks not wanting to see some of the annoying animation in
Flash Ads, but I don't understand why one wants to block Flash
entirely, without seeing if there is anything there to annoy them
first. It's asine, in my opinion.

You're entitled to your opinion. But plenty of people *do* surf without
Flash enabled (or installed). The way I use the web, Flash adds nothing
to it (I use it mainly to find information); therefore I've never
bothered to install the plugin, and the resulting "You need a plugin"
message is an excellent warning that I need to look for another site.

I get pretty nnoyed when someone puts up a manufacturer's website for a
product that I own, and the site relies on Flash. That means I have to
deploy my secondary browser.

The Shuttle website used to be like this; finally they seem to have
fixed it.
--
Jack.