Many people are do-it-yourselfers, jumping into creating a flash website design without understanding what goes into the creation process. Tutorials can only do so much, and there are certain skills that you'll need to get your flash website design up and running smoothly. This article describes what it takes to create a flash design, from skills to time management, to help you make a fully informed decision when you ask this question: Can I create my own or should I hire someone to do it?
IF/THEN Logic
Flash website design is built in frames (imagine the individual frames of a movie) and is a setup of IF/THEN logic. For example, the design can include a rollover mouse effect, where a button or word lights up when the mouse runs over it. The way a rollover effect is created is by using frames – two pictures of the same button. The first frame is the way you want the button to look originally, the second frame is the way you want the button to look when the mouse is on it.
This is where IF/THEN logic comes into play. IF/THEN logic says, "IF the mouse rolls over this button (or frame a), THEN go to frame b (i.e. the second picture created).
Flash Website Design Programs
Adobe Flash is the most widely used program for flash website design, and quite probably the most powerful to date. While there are other programs available (and some are better than others), most are wizzy-wig programs – what you see is what you get. Though they'll provide you with a flash page, they won't provide you with a good page.
Time
Flash website design is all about the pretties – the effects. How much time you spend on your design depends on how much you want to put into it. – i.e. animation, effects, etc. You could spend anywhere from a few hours to several weeks getting the effects you want, especially if you're just learning.
Skills
Here comes the intricate and somewhat difficult part, otherwise known as "the buggers". Flash website design isn't just putting pictures together. To build a website correctly, you'll need to learn some HTML and Action Script coding. If you don't know what either of those are, you've got some work to do. HTML is the basis of most, if not all, web pages – the coding that tells the Internet program what the page should look like.
Pros and Cons
There are some cons to having a fully flash website design:
• Flash content is heavier, bulkier, which means it takes longer to load than other types of pages.
• A 100% flash page isn't SEO compatible, which means search engines can't read the page, the content isn't searchable and you can't change your ranking. Generally, these designs are created by embedding pieces of flash into the html coding.
The pro is that the design makes a pretty, smooth, animated website that your customers will wow over. It's not cost effective to use it on an entire website, but if you decide you want a fully functional flash website design, your best bet is to hire a guru to do the coding for you.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?WALSAQ
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