One of the major complaints surrounding the use of Flash, is the necessity of having the plug-in installed on a system.  This presents a problem for designers and content providers who are authoring content in Flash.  How can you make sure that content is viewed by as many users as possible?  There are key concerns here with content distribution.

Publishing for Flash Versions Which Already Have a Wide Footprint

Of course Adobe wants users to have the latest Flash version, so if you are developing in say, Flash CS4 and you export your movie, it may be set automatically as “Flash player 10″.  Personally as someone who is thinking about the end-user experience, this doesn’t work for me, because I don’t want my users to go through a download process or update process using Flash.  Therefore, if my content does not use AS3 or advanced animation features, I will simply publish in “Flash player 8″ — a version that I know has very good rendering standards and is widely in use.

Providing Alternative Content

It is also very important to provide alternative (i.e. non-SWF) content, that can be viewed in the case of the user not having the Flash plug–in installed.  This happens more than Adobe would lead you to believe — for exapmple one ofmy friends who runs an older Mac laptop has had to install a “Flash blocker” on Firefox because his system cannot handle the high-performance that some Flash player 9 and 10 content requires — therefore he has to block it in order to avoid system hang-ups when browing to a page.

In order to make sure that (as close to) 100% of your audience can view your content, you should always provide an alternative, such as a .jpg, .png, .gif, “or even text content.  Use that space to show meaningful content, instead of lousy error messages!

Improve the User Experience by Reducing End-User Technical Knowledge Requirements

In my mind there is a direct corelation between our users being able to focus on content and the user experienc, as opposed to having to worry about technical tasks like installing plug-ins.  Let’s provide a service to them by reducing end-user labor, as well as the amount of  technical knowledge– required to view your content — your user does not have to think about what technologies are being used in order to experience it

In order to implement alternative content, here is a great article abou using SWFObject 2.0:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/alternative_content.html

Happy Interaction!

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Jay Harley is the CEO and web architect of Heaven Interactive. As a technologist, Jay specializes in creating business productivity software and offering clients high-level media consulting services. Before founding Heaven Interactive, Jay led a double life as a web consultant and MFA New Media instructor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. At AAU, he enthusiastically developed several courses in web application design and scripting, and enjoyed daily interaction with design students, offering guidance, support, and camaraderie as a media professional. Jay is now squarely focused on providing Web 3.0 solutions to businesses in the form of collaboration and presentation software, by utilizing the power of the "Web as a Platform."