DHTML or Flash? by Riaan Pieterse
The last five years has seen an exponential growth in the use of
shockwave and flash animations in creating websites. The old tried and
trusted techniques such as D/HTML are slowy moving over to make room for
this newer multimedia delivery vehicle. Scripting, such as Javascript, is
viewed with disdain by some and ignored by others. Yet the people who
advocate the use of flash/shockwave in creating multimedia-rich sites are
not asking the right question: Is all that glitters gold?
An
important facet of flash / shockwave glossed over by most people is that
these technologies are a packaged scripting environment: In other words -
most of what you can do in flash, you can do in DHTMl with a liitle
effort. A question that pops up at this stage is: Why would I want to go
through all of that? The answer is simple and is illustrated by way of
practical example.
Pick a topic - any topic - and type the relevant
seach keywords into your favorite search engine. Now try to find a flash
site under the first thirty results. You will be surprised to find that
this 'silver bullet' of web design does not even feature. The majority of
search engines do not support the indexing of shockwave / flash sites -
this can have a detrimental effect on your Internet business if you rely
on search engine traffic to generate revenue. Remember one thing: Content
is king and the only recognised content is in HTML pages.
Bells
& Whistles: Where, When and What
Deploying rich multimedia
sites are becoming more and more a design requirement. However, the
objective of your site should be the determining factor between using
D/HTML or Flash for multimedia content. Exposure and the generation of
revenue solidly discounts the use of Flash as the major site component -
search placement is too important to sacrifice for a simple thing such
shiny buttons. D/HTML provides an attractive alternative to ensuring that
your site is indexed properly by search engines.
However, Flash
should not be put out to pasture based on this: Limited Flash content can
still be an asset on your Internet presence if used judisciously.
Corporate Intranets are another matter entirely: Flash provides the
perfect delivery vehicle for rich business applications, where DHTML would
be more of a liability than an asset - e.g. training material,
presentations and etcetera.
In conclusion, the objective of a site
should determine which of the two technologies are the preferred medium
for mutimedia delivery.
About the Author
Riaan Pieterse is the CEO and founder of Kerberos Internet Services CC,
South Africa. Having spent a number of years conducting various consulting
assignments in the Far East, Middle East, Africa and Europe to businesses
and governments alike, Riaan has a solid understanding of the business and
technology issues in today's market.
For more information visit
http://www.kerberosdev.net
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