A couple of quick thoughts on what I see as the three thorny issues when it comes to Adobe Flash websites: Accessibility, Search-ability and the back button.

Accessibility
In my experience making Flash websites accessible is not because you can’t it is because of the cost implication for the client of pursuing this process. (According to WebAim you can make them (flash sites) more accessible than html )

Search-ability
Reactive have addressed the second issue of searchable flash sites with the Release of cManager 3.0 delivering a static version of the site for search-bots and then using server side redirection to deep link to pages within the site.

Back button
In the past it has been virtually impossible to make the back button function from flash sites meaning that one of the primary user navigation tools was disabled. With a bit of tweaking and bashing our heads together Reactive have managed to come up with a solution which works in almost all the current browsers (some of them just don’t meet the standards…) meaning that users can now browse through a site as they would html and bookmark/email pages of interest.

What does this mean?
It means there is absolutely no reason not to develop your site using all the power and potential of Adobe Flash. Reactive can help you deliver an accessible, Google indexable, searchable, bookmark friendly, back button enabled and content managed website.

What more could you ask for?

Dan Oxnam, Interaction Director

Labels: Design and Usability, Technology