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[Medical Illustration <druid AT email.unc.edu>]

> Flash may have those good qualities, but I've never seen a flash site that
> wasn't totally and completely unusable. I thought flash was designed to 
> build
> little interactive applets to imbed in a site, not build an entire web site.
That's like saying Javascript was only meant to pop up annoying little alert
boxes.  That's not even close to everything it can do.  In fact, you can
debate wether flash was ever designed for interaction, since actionscript
wasn't really developed until flash 4 (I think 3 had some simple functions
like stop, play, etc, but that's about it).

As to all flash sites being completely unusable, I think that's a common
occurrence that's slowly changing.  The problem is that there are so many
people who either go crazy with Flash or don't know how to manipulate it to
it's full potential.

As a good flash site, which is usable I suggest going to heraldsun.com and
looking at the gallery.  Take a look at the Touching hearts presentation.

Granted, this is more a presentation than a traditional site- but
considering the amount of sound an pictures used, the thing certainly has
enough content to compare with a traditional site.  Not only is it usable,
it tracks where the user has been so that it presents information at the
right time, without giving away parts of the story before the user should
see it.  This lets the user explore in any direction of the story that they
would like, without finding out the conclusion until the designer is ready
for them to.  In other words, the story doesn't get spoiled inadvertently -
something never possible in HTML.

I'm not saying Flash should replace HTML - there are times when there is
little benefit to Flash.  But that's not to say a site could not be done
completely in Flash, and still be usable, and practical.