Adobe Flash and impatience in the age of the internet

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Jamie123

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I read the recent post on APE (http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2010/04/20/ipad-magazine-savior-portfolio-replacemet-or-a-complete-waste-of-time/) which touched on the whole iPad vs. Flash issue.

I fully agree that Flash for photography websites is great and it isn't going anywhere in the near future. Anyways, this is my opinion and others are free to disagree. I often get into arguments with Flash haters about this and often get replies like "I block Flash websites" or''if a page takes more than 5 seconds to load I close it".
What I find really interesting about this attitude is the complete lack of patience it shows. Not only that but there also seems to be a sense of pride about this impatience. Like these people think they are too important to wait a few seconds for something.
Can we really not wait for a few seconds in order to view some beautiful content on our screen? Impatience is not a virtue in my opinion.
 
Flash for websites is horrible. Everything you want to do with Flash can be done quicker and more efficiently and without proprietary software or standards with HTML, CSS, Javascript and libraries like jQuery. (games excepting)

Being technically ignorant of superior solutions that don't require buggy third party plugins to make vendor lock in more and more of a reality is not a virtue at all.

I'm tired of Flash idiots breaking the back button. I'm tired of Flash idiots not allowing direct linking because they're too lazy to throw that functionality in there now that it can actually be done. I'm tired of Flash idiots thowing 508 accessability to the wind. I'm tired of Flash idiots who are convinced that everyone is on broadband and everyone has a full color 17"+ monitor to access the internet.

If Flash wasn't so obnoxiously used when it wasn't needed, I wouldn't have it disabled.
 
I read some studies about web usability in general (not typically flash related) where they analyzed how users reacted on browser and website behavior. They measured the time when people left the site or clicked away when they didn't get the desired result or the site simply didn't react in that time. This time was only a few seconds if I remember right. When you look at some flash widgets then some of them need some time to initialize and show the first reaction/content.

For just browsing, flash sometimes needs longer than the typical waiting time. If you visit a site on purpose because you really want to see the content then normally you wait longer and this should not be an issue.

People who don't like flash for whatever reason will probably use the loading time argument against it. I think this is ok. They don't know what they will miss.
 
I don't care what is behind web browser. As long as site is displayed 5 sec. after I press URL or hit ENTER after filling in address, I really do not care about technological stack.

If site displays "Loading...." for long enough to read it forth and back, it's a hint things are tough. If content can not be displayed within timeframe of 5 sec. I press Ctrl+W or click mouse on right corner. Content matters not technologies.
 
Brian Puccio said:
Flash for websites is horrible. Everything you want to do with Flash can be done quicker and more efficiently and without proprietary software or standards with HTML, CSS, Javascript and libraries like jQuery. (games excepting)
Click to expand...

Brian - Not everybody is a programmer. I find Flash programming to be understandable and fun to use. If I had to learn a multitude of other Web programming software, it would be just too time-consuming for me. There will always be something better and faster, but since Flash has been around longer than most, it has become a standard. Regards ---john.
 
tom.w.bn said:
Let's make a poll. Flash haters: what is your occupation. I bet the majority will hava a programming related occupation.
Click to expand...

I think you're right. And I think a poll amongst graphic designers and other people in a creative field on whether or not they like Flash would turn out very differently.
 
jbrubaker said:
Brian - Not everybody is a programmer. I find Flash programming to be understandable and fun to use. If I had to learn a multitude of other Web programming software, it would be just too time-consuming for me. There will always be something better and faster, but since Flash has been around longer than most, it has become a standard. Regards ---john.
Click to expand...

If you're a web developer but can't speak HTML, CSS and Javascript, you're not a web developer, you're some guy who tinkers with Flash. (By the way, you don't need to learn software to use these, that's the entire point.) Just as if you're a photographer, but don't know f-stops, depth of field, composition, lighting ratios, then you're some guy who tinkers with a camera, you're not a photographer.

Longevity is an excuse at best, not a reason.
 
I think some might have misunderstood the point of my post. I'm not generally putting down impatient people. I can certainly say for myself that I'm not a very patient person and the internet surely isn't helping in this regard (I also have the suspicion that I've developed a slight form of ADD that can be linked to the modern technologies surrounding me). What I'm saying is that somehow a lot of people seem to think that this impatience is a virtue.

It reminds me of something I witnessed a few years ago when I happened to be in Paris during fashion week. I was sitting outside at a café when a Brüno type fashion guy (shirt unbuttoned down to the bellybutton, chest hair showing) sat down at the table next to me. He sat down and ordered something (all while talking on his cell phone). The waitress took his order and went inside. Then maybe three minutes later a friend of his comes along who he probably was supposed to meet there. Without a moment of hesitation he gets up and walks away with the guy. A minute later the waitress comes out with the coffee and no one's there.
This, IMO, perfectly exemplifies the sense of self importance that a lot of people who dislike Flash seem to have. People say "I don't have time for this" but that's mostly just BS. If you have time to spend on a forum like this you have ten seconds to spare for a page to load. It's not that they don't have the time, it's that they think it's outrageous for someone to make them wait.

As for bad Flash sites, sure there are a lot of them. But frankly, I've seen many more horrible html sites than Flash sites. One of my favourite editorial photographers - Chris Buck - used to have a horrible html site. Now he has a Flash site (www.chrisbuck.com) which takes quite a while to load. I don't mind waiting because the pictures are great. It's not the best site I've ever seen but it's a much nicer viewing experience than the old site.
 
Jamie123 said:
I think you're right. And I think a poll amongst graphic designers and other people in a creative field on whether or not they like Flash would turn out very differently.
Click to expand...

Probably because they don't know the difference between the authoring tools and the plugin which is, politely, a steaming pile of crap.

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/06/16-month-old-bug-continues-to-crash-flash/

(be warned about that dempsky link - it still crashes browsers)

Most of the photo websites that use flash, tend to us it for stupid things like slide transitions (so I can't skip through them at the speed I want), background music (they never provide a nice stop button to disable despite the fact that I want MY music running in the background) or to obfuscate the actual images, making them harder to copy (my response typically is don't worry, they aren't that good).

I'm not waiting 5 seconds for this rubbish. Time is precious. It's your own damn fault for not learning what you can do with CSS and javascript. Don't lecture me on patience. You didn't have the patience to learn the tools to make your website and chose flash because Adobe's authoring tools saved you time. That is the impatience here.

And on top of that website like Hulu or Pandora that I do find useful and rely on flash often become unusable (Hulu likes to freeze up on full screen and Pandora has audio stutters after a few hours and eventually crashes). Both sets of problems caused solely by flash.

I look forward to the day these services migrate away and that flash dies.
 
gnarayan said:
Most of the photo websites that use flash, tend to us it for stupid things like slide transitions (so I can't skip through them at the speed I want), background music (they never provide a nice stop button to disable despite the fact that I want MY music running in the background) or to obfuscate the actual images, making them harder to copy (my response typically is don't worry, they aren't that good).
Click to expand...

I agree with you on the music aspect. I hate automatically playing music on websites. I also hate websites that resize my browswer window. Makes me feel violated.

I'm not sure what you mean by slide transitions, though. If you mean automated slideshows then yes, they suck. If you mean those sort of blend in/blend out or slide n/slide out transitions I disagree. I feel if you want to click through my images at lightspeed then I don't want you to view them anyway.

What I really don't like are html sites that require me to scroll from one picture to another. Such poor presentation really bugs me. Another thing I don't like is when images on html sites load gradually, i.e. when they load from top to bottom.
 
I don't mind flash at all when the content in question is animated--that is, if the flash is necessary to view the content. But when I want to look at photos, I just want to see the damn photos. As if I'm flipping through a book, or a pile of prints. A little javascript is generally enough to make a nice interface for this.

I am generally quite patient. But when I have to sit through a stupid flash intro just to check out somebody's work, I assume the photographer has no taste and I'm not going to like the photos anyway.
 
mabelsound said:
I don't mind flash at all when the content in question is animated--that is, if the flash is necessary to view the content. But when I want to look at photos, I just want to see the damn photos. As if I'm flipping through a book, or a pile of prints. A little javascript is generally enough to make a nice interface for this.

I am generally quite patient. But when I have to sit through a stupid flash intro just to check out somebody's work, I assume the photographer has no taste and I'm not going to like the photos anyway.
Click to expand...

I hate stupid Flash sites as much as the next guy but I don't think everything that can be done without Flash has to be done without it. If there's a simple photo gallery in Flash that's pleasing to look at I don't see the problem even if it could've been done without it.

Also, the assumption that the photographer has no taste only because his website sucks isn't always the case. Mitch Epstein's What is American Power (http://whatisamericanpower.com/#) is a terribly obnoxious Flash website IMO but the pictures are great.
 
Why are the people that dislike Flash so angry?

What annoys me is people that are so lazy that they don't have their own website - they use some second rate photo sharing site like Flickr 😀
 
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