To quote Adobe, their (it used to be Macromedia’s) Flash application is the “most advanced authoring environment for creating interactive web sites and digital experiences”. In spite of this, users have had problems structuring their sites effectively within Flash. This has resulted in a lot of confusion and the creation of many web sites that are inefficiently structured.

It is obvious why users are not clear about what to do, since they are shown various options with no clear guidelines to follow. When they open Flash they see a blank canvas and many blank frames displayed in a single layer which can be used. However, they do not know how to go about using these due to lack of instructions.

The Importance of Structuring

It has been seen that there are differences in the lay out of every Flash site. There are differences even in the way Flash web sites can be structured, some being more effective than others. Most Flash sites are not structured well, and some really are quite bad. In order to do some thing about it, one first needs to understand what structuring is.

Structuring a site basically means to enable the setting up of your site with ActionScript, MovieClips and Key Frames in addition to the control of your Flash play head. Structuring does not refer to the way a web site will look. 

Effective structuring of your site can make a difference to the speed at which it loads. Managing and updating your site will also be easier if you ensure that you structure your web site efficiently. A badly structured site will take longer to load, it will be difficult for you to enable changes at a later date and other complications may occur could create problems for your web site.

What Next?

Developing a navigation system needs to  be learned, the techniques for which can also be used for other projects such as Flash Poll, Flash RSS Reader or a Flash web site. However, this alone is not going to solve the problem of efficient structuring. So do check out with some one who knows as to what you should do.

A lot has been said about Flash that is critical in nature. However, Flash as a tool is undoubtedly very powerful. Although many users are put off by what has been said, they do not need to be. This holds true even for those with a dial up connection.

There are many ways for you to create a pleasant experience for all the visitors to your site. You can do this by fine tuning the movies and your site itself using Flash. To begin with, you can have a graphic representation of ‘Loading’ to keep the visitor to your site occupied. This will give you a chance to let the files down load properly. You can then ensure a smooth playback of your movie by programming it to wait to be fully loaded before it plays back.

But the danger lies in viewer fatigue setting in if the user starts getting annoyed at having to wait too long. The last thing you would want is for them to give up on the down load itself. You may as well forget about any one watching the movie if they cannot even wait for it to down load.

The Solution

One of the primary solutions to the problem of movie down load time is to keep the visitor to your web site updated. This means you need to keep them informed about the progress of the down load. It is likely to make them feel more involved in the progress and they may be willing to wait while the down load happens.

The information that you need to give the user can be in different forms such as visually or numerically. Alternatively, you can also display is as:

• The percentage already loaded
• The bytes already loaded
• The percentage still to be loaded
• The bytes still to be loaded
• Estimation of remaining time

You can use any or all of the above in different combinations and permutations. Even better still, if you incorporate designs and animated graphics in addition to just text or figures, your visitor will be kept busy.

It is only natural that most people would want their Flash web site to down load much faster than it does. The best possible thing to do in this situation is to reduce the size of your Flash movie in order to help it down load at a faster speed. There are different ways for you to reduce the size of the Flash movie:

• If any element in your movie shows up more than once, use a symbol which may or may not be animated: You will find a reusable element in the form of a symbol in your movie library. Symbols can be converted to artworks to save you band width.

•  Try to avoid the use of raster graphics:
  Flash works better if you use vector graphics instead of rater graphics.

• Rework the quality setting of your jpg image:
  Reduce your file size by working out the difference between file size and image quality.

• Dynamic loading of images:
  Do this in the same way you would use a loadMovie() action when loading a .swf externally.

• Optimize your images with these tips:
  You can refine lines and shapes, thereby reducing your .swf. file size.

• Line types like dotted and dashed to be limited:
  Brush strokes need more memory than lines created with pencil tool.

• Any elements that change during animation to be separated by layers from those that don’t change:
  Since the number of layers you use will not affect the movie size, you can place non-animated objects on separate layers from animated.

• Font styles and fonts to be limited in number:
  The less files saved n.swf means smaller file size.

• Flash movie to have text imported in to it:
  You can make changes in text without opening Flash.

• The Sound to be optimized in Flash:
  Use MP3 compression for small sounds.

• Different instances of a symbol can be created in various colors by using the Color Effects menu:
  Multiple use of the same symbol reduces file size.

• Movies in modular format:
  Break a Flash movie into smaller .swf files to speed up loading.

With more and more businesses building an online presence for themselves every day, it is very likely that no matter what your business is, you are likely to find competition on the Internet. For your business website to succeed, it is crucial that you find a way to make it unique and attractive. A large number of webmasters prefer to embed flash to their web pages to make them stand out and ensure their success.

Grab Attention

With Flash, you can make your web page not just visually attractive, but also capable of grabbing attention. Research has proven that web surfers barely spend a few seconds to judge a web page before deciding to peruse it or exit it. In these crucial moments, Flash can make all the difference in whether your visitor decides to stay on your page or go away. They say a picture is worth a thousands words, but when it comes to web design a flash animation may well be worth a million words.

Be Unique

Most web designers end up using free fonts, making their pages look commonplace. If you want to use completely unique fonts on your website, you can use Flash to do so. An image replacement technique can be used which replaces text with specific Flash designed fonts. Flash applications can be used to perform script actions, collect data, and serve many other functions that server-side scripts can serve. By using Flash to create fonts for you, you can be assured that your website looks different from every other website and this will help you attract and retain visitors on your website.

Be Interactive

A web page with just images and text can be very static and boring. On the other hand, flash can help you make your page interactive and interesting. This not only helps attract and retain visitor attention, it also helps you use better persuasion techniques. The flash elements on your page can contain Call To Action directives and this can go a long way in helping your website have more conversions and hence, greater success.