Earlier today, while I was on my computer, my brother walked in, asked if he could use it for a second. I gave him my Android-running tablet and kept minding my business. A while later, he came back saying "ugh, it's a Flash webpage and it won't run on Android, can you look up something for me please?"
While listening to music, I opened the URL he told me to. However, I was listening to music at that time... And of course, as expected of a Flash website, it started playing its own music... My first reaction was to turn off my speakers, and then I looked for the tiny "Mute" button on the webpage".
At this point, I was obviously a bit frustrated. Now, imagine yourself owning that webpage. Do you want your visitors to be frustrated by just opening your page?
More and more users lately browse the web on a tablet. By using Flash, you are automatically excluding these potential visitors. Furthermore, you hijack back buttons, middle clicks, copy-paste, and so on. Not to mention that Flash is one of the most anti-SEO things you could do to yourself. As this site points out (it's a worthy read), not even Adobe's own site uses Flash!
Now, about music... Please, have some respect for those visitors who are already listening to something else. Or who don't like your music. Or who just put their baby to sleep. Or who clicked to open 4-5 new tabs in a row, and are rushing to close the one (or, even worse, two!) that started yelling behind their backs. And, if you are still not convinced, at least have some respect for corporate visitors, potential clients of yours, who open a website in their office and suddenly get ridiculed at the face of their boss. Another worthy read over here has even more reasons for you to read and enjoy.
My personal favorite example of "how not to design a website" used to be a restaurant (they changed their page now).
Imagine a hungry customer, wanting to order food from them and looking for the menu. This customer is welcomed by a "Loading..." screen, then is greeted by ... a house... OK, but where's the menu?...
Oh - actually, you can interact with the house's windows. After some clicky maze, you are given two options:
- See the story and cooking secrets of our best dishes
- Look at the menu
There it is, FINALLY! You click 2, just to see another "Loading..." screen, and a beautiful animation taking the house away. At this point, if you haven't looked for another restaurant yet, you're probably closing this page and looking for something else. There it goes - one more lost customer.
Now, given my blog's audience, you may think I'm preaching to the choir. On the other hand, it's us who should raise awareness about this issue. The poor site owner may not be that tech-savvy, and might even be enjoying this good-looking page. It's up to us to email them and kindly inform them that it's not a good practice at all. Don't blame the recipients of the email; it's most likely that they aren't aware of all these reasons. Be polite and try to help them understand.
