Unfortunately, the "Flash experience" offered by many sites can be equated to talking with an annoying relative for hours on end: Parts of the interaction might be entertaining, but mostly you'd rather commit ritual suicide than continue on "as is."
Some sites, like icebox.com, are so heavily reliant on Flash that you can't even see their homepage without the Flash plug-in.
View a screen grab of their Flash plug-in redirect screen. icebox.com tries to hustle you into downloading the plug-in ... but fails to give you any reason why you should.
- Flash is a barrier to icebox.com's actual content — and they do little to convince the non-Flash user to jump over that wall.
At least icebox.com gives users a direction, a few links. That entertaindom dead end is literally a dead end. No links on it, not even a link back to their homepage.
While some sites offer too little direction and guidance, others strive hard to use Flash to "wow" you. These sites are "all singing, all dancing" and — if I can make a very broad, wide-sweeping generalization — users without T-1 access generally hate them.
Take European online clothing retailer boo.com.
Or to be more accurate, make that "the former European online clothing retailer," boo.com. This site collapsed in May 2000, just six months after its launch.
Why?
Well, if you believe Boo co-founder Enrst Malmsten, the site was "too visionary" and strove for perfection without "control of costs."
Uh huh. Boo.com also used a little program called Flash to confuse the hell out of potential shoppers.
People who went to the site at its launch were greeted by a lengthy download process. The survivors then faced a perplexing array of Flashed popup windows.
"Miss Boo," an animated shopping guide, appeared in one window. The other windows contained:
- a Boo shopping bag containing items being bought
- a Boo mannequin dressed in the clothes being inspected
- a detailed image of a single item which could be spun around for closer examination
- a range of clothes to select from
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