A couple of weeks ago I talked about graceful flash degradation: what it means, issues that arise while developing in flash, and how to fix them properly. This is the second article on the topic. Before we continue, make sure you're familiar with the first article on flash degradation, because this article contains examples to emphasize what the previous article described.

Good flash degradation from New York Times

We previously stumbled upon UEFA's site and a wine company's website. Today we are looking upon a newspaper's website. The name is self explanatory, New York Times being the largest metropolitan newspaper published in the United States. Having that weight attached to their necks, they knew their online presence must be perfect. And it is.

New York Times has an online photojournalism section which is built in flash. It is consisted of a series of posts, each around an image. Each post has apart from the image, a brief paragraph describing the picture, where it was taken and so on. A nice feature is the small sneak peak to the next and previous articles, which are visible in the left and right sidebars of the article you are currently viewing. However, I don't think this was a feature they specifically developed, as the full screen mode lacks it.

What really matters here is that they also have a non flash version of the site which kicks in if you do not have the necessary plugins. They also let you know that if you want to fully enjoy the features of the site, you should install flash player. Flawless solution. Great job for New York Times, but perhaps more congrats should go to the site developers, whoever they are.

If you have any other examples or pointers please leave them in the comments section bellow. If you liked this article you can subscribe to the full content rss feed and stay updated as we post new information.

It has been quite some time since I last wrote an article here, and I hope you all enjoyed the summer and summer holiday. I read a lot of blogs each day and I must say that there's a decent amount of articles about javascript, content, and how to properly code a site when using javascript. You have to be careful because of those people who disable javascript or use old browsers that don't have such features. However, I haven't seen any articles describing some short guidelines as to what you should do when developing a site in flash.

Issues with flash developing

The first issue that has to be taken into consideration here is that while many people have flash player installed, its version may be an older one, and the site or web app you are building with flash 10 may not work correctly, or at all on some people's computers. Moreover, there are individuals that don't have flash player installed, just like the ones without javascript.

How to handle flash generated problems

The easiest option would be to develop a html version of the site. Though this is ok, the costs of such a solution grow as the site grows. This is ok for small sites or sites that are not updated frequently. What happens when you have a big site, with content updated on a daily basis?

One interesting solution, which I definitely like is the one adopted by UEFA (Union of European Football Associations). Their website is not entirely flash, but has many flash sections. One of them is a content slider, which could have been built using javascript. They used flash and that is ok too, but how they fix search engine issue that come by using flash. How can people using mobile devices like the iPhone - which doesn't have flash - browse their website and read valuable content?

The solution is quite simple. UEFA's website displays all content headlines as plain text. Those headlines were previously bundled with images in the flash content slider. Moreover, the headlines appear in the same area of the site, leaving the layout uncrippled. Another important feature is that they also display a small button telling their visitors that if they want to fully enjoy the site they should install flash player. They also link to Adobe's download page.

UEFA does a great job making a well developed website, but they have their own pitfalls. During the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League draws, which took place last week, their live coverage of the event had only flash versions, rendering blank pages for users without flash player. Mobile users had to make phone calls in order to find out the group of their favorite team.

A website that does a bad job about non flash user experience is vinuldenunta.ro . Such users do see something other than a blank page. They are presented with a small paragraph which unfortunately isn't formatted in any way, leaving the impression the site is under construction. No information is provided regarding the cool flash version of the site that is hidden to them.

Pointers for better flash developing

• 1. If possible, provide a non flash version of the site
• 2. If important content is displayed within flash, make sure it is available for users that do not have flash player
• 3. Don't use flash for navigation, and if you do, provide a secondary navigation menu using html
• 4. If you only have flash version, make sure you let non flash users know about that

The above are just some basic pointers, but sticking to them will insure a high quality website. If you have any other examples or pointers please leave them in the comments section bellow. If you liked this article you can subscribe to the full content rss feed and stay updated as we post new information.