Animation and Flash

You may have seen some sites that have sound, motion and interaction. Sites that have this often use a program called Adobe Flash to create these effects. These effects are sometimes called flash files. Initially many web designers did not want to use flash because not everyone was able to see Flash and Shockwave files but today nearly 97% of viewers can see these movies.

Flash is most commonly used to create an introduction or "splash page". The function of the splash page is to make an exciting entrance to the web site. A good splash page will automatically detect whether or not the user has the flash player installed.

While splash pages can be used to add excitement to web sites they have fallen out of favor in many cases as people increasingly use the web to find information and are less concerned (or impressed) with fancy entry pages. Search engines also increasingly frown on these entry pages and often penalize sites that use them. For this reason we usually don't recommend a splash page.

Here are some real simple examples of possible splash pages for the Trailhead Web Design site.

Space | Photocopy | Blinds | Globe