The pros and cons of Flash based websites for photographers
Websites for photographers seem to fall broadly into two camps: those that use Flash and those that don't. Flash would appear to be the ideal way to show your work in an attractive way. However, there are some pro and cons you should consider before commissioning a website or starting to build one yourself.
Pros
- Visual flexibility. Your website is likely to look a lot better
- Browser support. Around 95% of web browsers support Flash
- Video support. Now that many digital cameras support video, you might want to show moving as well as still images
- Better copyright protection. It's more difficult to save images from a Flash website (you'd have to do a screen grab, then go to the trouble of cropping it and saving it)
Cons
- Difficulty in getting ranked and categorised by search engines. Whilst Google and the other search engines are improving their technology so they can rank and categorise Flash based websites, it will be a while before they do this as well as they do for standard XHTML based websites
- Loading times and bandwidth issues. Any Flash based websites that feature loading sequences or slow-to-load complex graphics might frustrate your visitors
- Incomplete back button support
Conclusion
If you are so famous that people are going to search for you by name or work in such a niche market that you have little competition, then use Flash. Otherwise use a standard data-driven XHTML website with plenty of captions.
Posted: 30.06.2008 | Comments: 0 | Add a comment
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