I am trying to get Macromedia FlashMX approved for development on our
corporate intranet. Are there any compelling business arguments to be
made in favor of using Flash, other than marketing reasons such as "it
looks good", as opposed to simply using DHTML?

Hi, and thanks for the question. 

When Flash first came out I looked at it as an internet programmer and
didn't find it very interesting. I purchased version 4.0 because
several of my clients wanted "pretty pictures" and again, didn't find
it very interesting. The newer versions are much better.

My lack of interest stemmed mostly from being unable to talk to or
from the flash programs. You made them, they sat on the webpage, did
the song and dance, and that was all they could do (reliably). I tried
using it for forms and such with my 4.0, but it never worked right and
there was no error checking really.

The newer versions talk to the outside and take in variable
information. This opens a whole new world, as you well know.

I recently made a program for a client where you can design your own
spare tire cover. This is all in php and works pretty good. The
limitation is the template. Three lines of text, Top, Middle, Bottom.
The client decided that she wanted other templates and that was going
to get expensive. I decided to create a Flash template. This template
allows for up to 8 lines of text, 2 graphic types and the user can
place them anywhere on the Proof by moving them around with a mouse in
the flash environment. The program talks to the shopping cart and
gives them a cost depending on how many lines they have added.

Customer demonstration therefore would be a good idea, Product demos,
interactive creation of items, Lesson Plans (one of my clients uses
flash programs to teach kids how to read) Graphs and charts and that
type of thing can be much more "explanatory." Since Flash can talk
with Perl, PHP, XML and therefore has Database access, real numbers
and connections can be displayed in a flash bar-graph. Yes, there are
other ways of doing this, but none of them are a fast to set up.

I find HowTo's to work very well in Flash, being able to place Visual
aids to text is always a plus.

DHTML works differently in different browsers. Something's don't work
at all.
[http://www.scottandrew.com/weblog/articles/dhtml_ns6] 

One of the nice things about Flash is its kind of like PDF, if it
works at all, it will always look and act the same on any browser.
Most of the new browsers support Flash out of the box, and those that
don't have plugins for it, (except of course the text browsers like
lynx). So I would think that not having to worry about new browsers
coming out that force your web programming staff to rewrite a lot code
would be compelling.

If you would like more "ideas" on what to do with flash for your
company, please request clarification and let me know what industry
your company is in, and I'll get some more ideas to you.

webadept-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by chiefbrowserist-ga on 15 Jun 2002 16:00 PDT

I'm sorry to take so long to respond--been nuts!
I work in a government research laboratory, developing and helping set
standards for the intranet, including which browser to use, and what
plugins/controls are to be deployed with it. I like the PDF argument,
but I don't think it will be compelling to the powers that be. Can you
come up with anything else for me?
Do you have any other examples of dynamic app interfaces? We already
do some of this using the usual technologies: Perl, J2EE, ColdFusion,
and HTML.
Thanks!

---

Clarification of Answer by webadept-ga on 16 Jun 2002 01:29 PDT

There are only 5 real reasons to choose a technology on a website. 

1) speed

2) flexibility

3) maintenance accessibility

4) durability

5) employee support availability

Flash has durability, newer web-browsers don't seem to have a problem
with displaying older version programs. Hence the PDF argument. The
other four though are not Flash strong points. Once the program is
created, its very difficult to make simple changes later. It doesn't
sound like you have many people there that use Flash. It's not
flexible, and its not fast to load (though on a intranet this may not
be much of a problem)

Flash looks good. That's about it. But it sounds like you are using
tools already that can make a page look as good if not better than you
can do in Flash. So, I apologize, but no, my only really good argument
for you was that if would always look the same no matter what browser
was used.

I am currently creating a lesson project for web learning, and Flash
works well for this, but only if kept small and as needed. For
instance the main reason I am using it is for the voice instruction.
Flash does compress wav files well and you can time the playing of
them to sync with other things on the page.

Over the last week I have looked at several sites that teach lessons,
and use Flash, and all of them use the "full page" method, the whole
lesson in flash. These files take forever to load. Once they load,
they are fun and cool, but that's what Flash is, "fun and cool."

So, for practicality, its not really a choice. I would love to help
you further on this, but that answer is all I could come up with (and
I'm even a Flash fan these days).

webadept-ga

In Chapter 9 of "Son of Web Pages That Suck" (just published) Vincent
Flanders provides a list of what Flash is good (or even brilliant) for
- and what it isn't.  You may be able to use the information there to
develop you business case specific to the kind of information you
could use it for on your intranet.

Great answer from webadept. I concur and want to point out that Flash
belongs on the "leaves" of a site rather than the "trunk" where people
tend to use it now. That is, most people put Flash at the front door
of a site, making users angry by delaying them when they just want to
get into the site and do a task. Flash belongs in specific places
where it can add value: configurators, demonstrations, online ads and
so on. And you should try to provide alternative means of getting the
info or doing the job for people who don't have Flash or don't want to
use it.

So to specifically answer your question, the point isn't to get Flash
approved as a separate decision. Instead, when a need comes up for
your intranet that can be best met using Flash, make the case then -
not for Flash per se, but for the solution you have that uses Flash to
get the job done in an excellent way.

Jakob Nielsen, Web usability guru, wrote an article about Flash:
"Flash: 99% Bad." It's at:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

I think he's far too harsh, but people will bring up this article, or
the points in it, if you push for Flash. Be ready to answer Nielsen's
arguments.

As a matter of interest, here are some stats off a small website
showing the plugins installed on visitors computers ...

http://clickclub.port5.com/plugins.htm

Shockwave Flash is top of the list.

Personally, I rarely have the time to wait for a Flash page to load.
If there is not an HTML option available I go elsewhere.

lugga

budsmith-ga wrote, "the point isn't to get Flash approved as a
separate decision. Instead, when a need comes up for your intranet
that can be best met using Flash, make the case then".

If his company is anything like the place where I work, by the time
you have a need for the product, it's too late to ask them to buy it.
If you think you'll need something in the coming year, you have to ask
for it during the annual budget process. If you don't, and 3 months
into the fiscal year you find a need for Flash, you won't be able to
get it until 9 months later.

Macromedia has a lot of info on their website. For government:
<http://www.macromedia.com/resources/government/> Flash MX allows you
to develop a site that's compliant with Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act if you happen to be part of the US federal
government. See: <http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibility/>