2 Camps for Flash Was: Just one "plug" for Flash

[Steven Elling]

There are two camps that everyone falls into with regard to Flash and some 
people fall into both depending on why they are on the Internet.

There is the "Looking for entertainment so Flash is OK" camp.

If someone is on the Internet looking for entertaining sites, they would not 
mind going to a site that uses Flash because that is its primary use.

When I had RoadRunner and more free time on my hands, I used to visit Joe 
Cartoon on Linux.  However, I do not visit the site anymore because now the 
only way to access the Internet is via dial-up.  Downloading Flash via 
dial-up is painfully slow and even though I might have `some' time to waste 
I don't have that much time.

And then, there's the "Looking for content and useability so Flash is BAD" 
camp.

If someone is on the Internet looking for information or a job, like me; 
they are not going to want to use a site that uses Flash because it gets in 
the way.

I for one don't like to use sites geared toward information or provide some 
type of `Application' if they use Flash as well because Flash provides a 
constant distraction and now-a-days brings my system to a crawl.  In 
addition, I'm on a dial-up connection and when I'm looking for information 
or want useability I don't what to download a lot of cruft just to get at 
what I want.

Now there are some sites I use that have small Flash elements to them but 
generally the Flash elements are entertaining advertisments and I use 
Privoxy to strip them out.

I would challenge anyone who is a developer to read books on interface / Web 
/ content design and useability because years have been spent on 
researching how humans interact with computers and how information is best 
viewed / interpreted.

One last note for you Web Developers:  If you use `click here' or 'here' 
links in the Web sites you design, shame on you!

Avoid online-only aspects 
(http://www.htmlhelp.com/design/style/docstyle-no-online.html)

Style guide for online hypertext (http://www.htmlhelp.com/design/style/)