Here’s a funny one: Back in 2004 (seems so long ago) I was entertaining the idea to write a monthly opinion column for Computer Arts. I can’t remember what gave me the idea to do it in the first place (maybe I liked Jason’s column and thought “I can do that!”), but I felt I had opinions about web design that I wanted to get off my chest. I think I was at the stage where I was talking to CA about the possibility of writing it, and I’d even written a sample article. It was an article on the seeming decline of widespread Flash use, and how HTML-based sites were making a comeback. For some reason I decided at the last minute to pull out, because I didn’t feel I did the topic justice.

Anyway… for posterity, I thought it’d be fun to share the article and see if I got anything right and how much has changed since then. (This was obviously written well before the “web 2.0″ boom and the widespread proliferation of web technologies like AJAX and JQuery)

Opinion column.

Is Flash Dead?
By Tom Muller.

The last couple of years have seen Flash seriously coming of age and used in one shape or form on web sites: from full blown sites using intense Flash scripting and database driven applications, to ‘in-your-face’ portfolio sites and interactive showcases; to today, where more and more designers seem to go back to HTML/PHP driven sites, avoiding Flash altogether.

Does that mean that Flash has seen its peak, or have designers grown up with the application and realized its full potential?

The reason I’m asking this question is very simple. Design, like everything else, is subject to trends, innovation and growth, whether you like it or not.

So is this return to ‘static’ sites a result of some trend, or is there something more to it?

A couple of years ago, around 1999-2000 when the dot.com dream was still alive, Flash suddenly came into its own. Improved animation tools and a serious boost in its technical abilities meant that designers now had the opportunity to break away from static HTML driven sites, and let their designs and images come to life.

For a while, everyone was using Flash on one site or another. Some produced beautiful results, some created stories and little movies, others created fully animated portfolios that’s whizzed and zoomed around your monitor.

But was it all necessary?
When I started out in web design, the company I worked for specialized in B to B communications; which basically meant that the end user had no clue about interactive media, and Flash was a word from the devil. Plug-in issues aside, the content and message was the prime directive. We designed content, not brainless eye candy; and when you think about it, the web is first and foremost a data carrier. If you design/build a site, you want people to see your work, and a 2 meg intro is going to do you no good if the actual site is incomprehensive.

I mean, I’m as guilty as the next designer to have used Flash in a totally inappropriate way. Right when I left for London and started working for Vir2L (which was known for its exuberant visual style, I totally lost the plot. No more restrictions! Spinning 3D logos! Excitement! The classic full-screen 2 MB intro is but one example, but it never really served the public. In hindsight, it was all a self-indulgent exercise for us designers to see how far we could push the boundaries. So what if the end-user was still on a 256K dialup? All us designers had broadband, and that was all that mattered.
Lots of designers and agencies started profiling themselves as Flash masters, some were successful, others, well…. I guess anyone with a decent sense for design and usability will be able to pick to good from the bad and the ugly.

And sometimes we wonder why there was a dot-bomb… .

The way I see it, there’s only 2 ways to use Flash appropriately:
You create a full on interactive story or experience, where you take the user on a journey, entertain him/her and that’s it. Or, you use Flash to create interactive tools that fit within a larger framework, based and led by content (stuff like video- and audio players for example). People have absolutely no use for a site that may have cool stuff whizzing about that detract rather than add value to a site. Sure it’s cool that you can move you menu around, but where is the added value in that??

We as (web )designers have a job: communicate! By no means does that mean it has to be boring, far from it, but however it looks, it has to work.

Fast-forward to today. If you look online now, and surf the design portals in search for your daily design fix, you’ll notice a big shift. Flash is almost no more.

Although the application has matured and offers even more and more functionality to create fully integrated, dynamic sites, most designers seem to be looking the other way: (X)HTML –based sites, using PHP and MySQL to deliver the message.

I’ve always been a firm believer that there is a place for both, and I tend to build sites using HTML rather than Flash, basically because of accessibility and that still, HTML based sites offer a more versatile way of presenting your content.

I only use Flash in such a way that it supports the site, rather than using it just for the sake of it. I prefer a good combination of both. I’ll use it in bits of the navigation, subtle ‘background’ animations etc,… nothing that seems too intrusive and doesn’t detract from the overall site, but rather, what I believe, adds just that little extra to a site. It all depends on the content and the message you’re delivering.

Most designers nowadays seem to think in that direction. Most personal, and more and more commercial sites use an almost minimal, clean approach to present their work, sometimes to the extent that Flash is used in such a static way that you might ask yourself, why go through the effort to build a site in Flash that acts like an HTML site? Besides the fact maybe, that you can control your typefaces, I don’t really see the use.

Either way, it looks like us designers have finally started to grow up and use the tools because of the content, and not the content to play with the tools.

So whatever you do, if you’re a Flash kid or not, always design for the content of the site, not because you can make a nice interactive twirl.

Muller has spoken.