Creating Your Flash Banner
To many web design specialists, using Flash in a site is often a huge problem. Not only that, there is often compatibility issues with users’ computers (missing or outdated players), Flash also can’t be read by the search engines, rendering it pretty much useless. Thus, they often try to avoid using it as much as possible.
But, Flash does have its own set of advantages. For one, it enables you to place in animation and videos into your site. This makes it attractive to your users. And not only that, but with this added feature, you will be able to place in more information, again, for your users’ convenience.
And one of the places that you will find excellent use for Flash is your site’s banner. After all this is the first one that your viewers will see, so you certainly would want to catch their attention. But, as have been mentioned, certain user issues will likely hinder you from using Flash banners. But with a few simple reminders, not only will you be able to use them, but you will also be able to make the most out of them.
One of the things that you need to seriously consider is the compatibility issues. Depending on your target audience, you can easily gauge whether or not they have the necessary tools to be able to view your Flash banner. For instance, if you are going after and audience that is is specifically into the type of sites just like yours, then you can safely assume that they would have the necessary plugins installed into their browsers for this. On the other hand, if your audience is of a broader range, then never quickly jump on this one. In fact, if this is the case, you should always assume that not all of them might have installed the plugins.
Another useful tip when making your banner is to really consider designing it for use with an older version. For instance, the latest release of Adobe’s Flash player is version 9, so you might want to design your banner in Flash 7 or 8. This way, more of your users will be able to see your banner, as some of them will likely have not yet been able to update their systems.
It is also vital to take into account that not all of your audiences will have plugins installed. Thus you need to deal with this also. The simplest way that you can do this is by simply putting in text descriptions by using the ALT attribute in your code. Make sure that your text descriptions are concise and direct to the point in order for your users to easily know what it means.
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