Flash web site design in London

What is flash web design?

Flash web design is the creation of rich web content using Adobe Flash Player originally from Macromedia. In order to view Flash movies you will need to download and install the browser plugin Adobe Flash Player.

Adobe Flash Player is a very commonly used tool for providing rich Web content.

Its advantages include easy cross-browser compatibility. Flash movies will always look the same in different browsers as long as the same flash player version is used.

Its main disadvantages are that it's very time consuming to produce a whole web site in Flash compared to using conventional XHTML and CSS. Also Flash based web sites are harder to optimise for search engines like Google. Adobe is working to improve this.

Adobe Apollo

Apollo is the latest offering from Adobe. It is a cross-OS runtime environment that allows web-site developers to use existing web development skills e.g. XHTML, CSS, Flash, Ajax and Flex to build and deploy desktop applications.

Ebay are one of the first to use Apollo in their desktop based auction site: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/videos/apollo_demo07/index.html

Although this tool initially looks great for developers, because they don't need to learn new programming languages to create desktop applications any longer, it's hard to see if the tool really brings any great advantages over using a browser to serve the content or application.
With the continuing increase in Internet connection speeds it seems likely that conventional applications, like the ones included in Microsoft Office, would move towards being served from a web browser.

Flash Versus HTML

Advantages of HTML

HTML is the conventional way of creating web sites. The majority of web sites are created using HTML with elements of Flash within the content. The main advantages are as follows: Flash based web sites load more slowly than HTML ones. Nobody likes waiting for the Flash pre-loader screens. HTML wins hands down on that one.
Flash sites are harder to maintain. This is more of a cost issue. Generally speaking it's easier to update HTML sites and quicker. Therefore your costs are less.
Flash isn't always installed on internet browsers by default. This means that you are limiting your target audience. Some people prefer not to install Flash or don't have the technical ability to install Flash.
Flash is less accessible. This means that users with disabilities may find it difficult or impossible to navigate your site. This isn't necessarily the case with more recent versions of Flash or sites that have been put together following Adobe's accessibility guidelines.

Advantages of Flash

The main advantages are as follows: Create visually inspiring web-sites with dynamic movie style interactive that beats HTML easily even if you employ advance AJAX techniques in your HTML. Flash Sites can look... Flash. Inspiring. Fantastic.
Cross browser functionality is easier to achieve. This is generally the case although some HTML developers may disagree with this point. This is more the case if you try to create very interactive motion style effect in HTML.

There is definitely a place for flash web site design london and it should be used when appropriate, if you need to showcase a site with a certain flair.