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May 3, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Posted in Work, Comments (3)

I hadn't heard of this term before we launched our new website. Then someone noticed a Brian Morrissey story over on AdFreak that was debating whether agencies like McKinney, BBH, and Leo Burnett were guilty of flashturbation on their websites. The article itself is rather short but probably more interesting are the comments in reply to the story.

Personally I think of flash when an idea needs a tool capable of supporting a specific experience- but equally I think of other tools at the same time and choose the one that fits best with the requirements. I am sure it is the same in other lines of work...when a builder starts out on a new home they follow the blueprints that the architect has created and use tools and materials that best fit the circumstances, that's what we do.

Take a look and have your say on the subject - 'Flashturbation'

3 Comments

On May 4, 2009 at 10:26 AM, coalie724 wrote:

We've had the site live for over two months now and the amount of time users spend on the site is up over 50% from our old site. I feel pretty confident we used the correct tool based on that stat alone. The site was built in flash, but we also have the html version for smartphones, and this blog for our day -to-day communication. It's not flashturbation if you bring out all the other toys is it?

offensive?

On May 4, 2009 at 12:36 PM, jnichols wrote:

As long as a site presents workarounds for the weaknesses posed by flash (deep-linking, back button, SEO, etc) then I could care less.

That said:

I'm loving the sexy UIs people are building with Ajax -- because they are streamlined, they look great, but most of all because they're clearly built with functionality and content management in mind, rather than "oooh look at this pretty thing I made (let's pray we don't have to update it)"

But that's also because Ajax is the choice of "hip" developers these days. Only a matter of time before something else comes along.

offensive?

On May 20, 2009 at 11:12 PM, jon williams wrote:

but the old site was flash too as I recall, so you can't attribute the 50% increase in time-on-site to flash use. It'd be interesting to see if that stat holds as the new site nears the end of its lifetime in 2 or 3 years... Said another way, I wonder what the time-on-site stat was for the old site during it's first two months after launch.

The article and comments do raise some valid points -- html sites (generally) enforce a grid system of sorts. It's (generally) easier to add new sections you didn't initially foresee. It's (generally) easier to support search-engine visibility and deep linking. This has at least as much to do with the implied row & column grid of HTML layout as it does with the huge simplifications that result when you remove animated transitions from the equation.

So if you need to be highly nimble, you'll gravitate towards HTML. If you're prepared to deal with the inherently more complex world of animation and DIY layout (and the dev time that requires), you'll probably gravitate towards Flash. Sometimes it simply comes down to what talent you have available for production.

Also, AJAXturbation just doesn't have the same ring to it.

offensive?