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Jakomedia Flash
Macromedia have partnered with Jakob Nielsen to create Flash guidelines. Two years ago Nielsen stated that Flash is 99% bad as the technology is encouraging design overkill, making navigation hard, and removing user attention from core content. The 2002 Flash MX version have, according to Nielsen, fixed most of these problems. Nielsen does not, however, reveal how the new version is better. We are only told that:
- Back button in the browser is now supported.
- Default scroll bar and other browser controls are now standardized.
I expect the Flash guidelines to be important not only to Flash developers but to anyone else involved in multimedia development on the Web. Some of the questions that usability researchers needs to answer are:
- What major types of Web animations are currently used? (animated logos, product demos, etc.)
- How do various types of Web animations affect usability on homepages and other central pages? For instance, I would expect that users are less tolerant toward animations on homepages and more tolerant on product pages - assuming that animations are relevant to the user experience.
- Is slow download time considered an issue?
- Are users more likely to accept short animations that run once as opposed to continous and very long animations?
- When, if at all, is it acceptable to remove or modify some/all browser controls?
- Should we avoid pure Flash sites?
- What can Macromedia do to limit the potential harm done by bad Flash developers?
See also Macromedia Flash on usability, Macromedia's top 10 usability tips for Flash web sites, and Flazoom.com.
June 2, 2002
- By Kristoffer Bohmann
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Usability News