Do you think flashing imagery is good or bad on a web site? I went to a site the other day and it froze my computer. I would hate to do that to a customer. How much is too much animation or flash? A site that I just cannot really view due to it overloading my computer is nike.com. I don't know what it is but it stalls my system everytime I have ever tried to browse there.

Flash is one of the many sin’s of the internet if used incorrectly, it both plays a major part in advertisement and even structure of sites in some cases however having a flash dependant site is always ill-advised.

Often many advertisements are still made in flash though utilise the .gif format for the compatibility aspect however this limits quality, 9 times out of 10 the rule is that if it exceeds the quality or reasonable size for download then avoid it.

As well as this the compatibility aspect of flash is one of its major disadvantages, based on the last statistics id seen there where a very low percentage with the .swf flash player plug-in and even less with it enabled and the rough age ranges where that mainly of the younger generation.

Really with flash use of it should depend on your user base and the “usefulness” of the animation or site in that format, by this what extra advantage over say javascript/ajax php/html alternatives.

I feel as tho the web is moving away from Flash in general. Also, you have to keep in mind that alot of people have SmartPhones (BlackBerry's / iPhones) and with such devices Flash is a nightmare! Ideally you want to make your website user-friendly to everyone.

There is a general trend to avoid flash right now cause many people are wanting pages to load faster and without flash web pages are smaller and in turn load much quicker. If you have flash on your site, people may be turned away because they have to wait for it to load.

Flash is sometimes annoying, but it has its uses.

This largely depends on your target audience. Obliviously, if the majority of your clients are on dial up or you're targeting those folks, of course flash wouldn't be a good choice. Flash does have it's niche.

Flash, could be a nightmare, but it does look good on websites...

Personally I think it scares customers off, I certainly wouldn't like to have things flashed at me whilst on a site. It would just remind me of a constant pop up (very annoying)

I think that is probably the best tip I have heard in regards to whether or not one should use flash. I had thought of it causing issues with certain users but I hadn't really considered those who still use dial up at all and further hadn't considered what my specific customers might be using!

Use flash in 'moderation' I generally quickly leave a site if it has more than a flash web image gallery. But that's me

Why? Noise, music, annoying sounds, waiting for transitions, etc is just annoying in general.

This is part of the reasoning I had initially when I asked this question though with so many responses I see that it isn't just my personal issues with them. I think Flash will be something I am not going to deal with at this point. Thanks!

Groovy! Flash has its place, and a flash website is not it.

Embedded video, image galleries, even banners all work great as flash. But the site itself should be CSS/XHTML, maybe powered by a php Content Management System.

Thanks Mike, that is what I had decided as well. Some had recommended them but the more I check into them and the more I see, the less I like the whole idea of flash except for banners or videos maybe.

We have a bit of flash on our site, but not much. Keep it only on a few pages, but it can really help convey the value provided by a site with a flash slide show.

There are other alternatives as well like a JavaScript, but this all depends on exactly what you are looking to do.