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

> One of my pet peeves is designers who put "total design freedom" in the way
> of site usability by constructing entire sites in Flash. I have been to
> sites that have everything down to their contract and driving directions
> done in Flash. What is the reason for this that is more important than
> rendering the type in a format that I can cut and paste into my contact
> manager, synch with my Palm or email to someone? Sure the type is pretty,
> but having to retype information does not help my productivity as a user.
> 
> David
> 
> On 9/28/01 2:58 PM, "Medical Illustration" <druid AT email.unc.edu> wrote:
Guess what?  Not Flashes fault that you can't cut and paste the text.
That's the designer's fault for not checking the "selectable" box when they
put in the text.  

Look, anything that you can imagine, including anything to increase
usability, can be done in Flash.  The problem is designers who grab a little
book, read up, and suddenly think they are Flash Masters.

Let's take the map example.  I can create a map in flash, where you can cut
& paste directions, That's created in vectors, so is smaller than any gif
and can be scaled to any printable size without becoming rasterized,
allowing them to print their own map at full size if they wish, at any size
they wish.  In addition, I could give them a button which would allow them
to start an animation that follows the roads they need to take to get to my
building-- in fact, I can let them choose from any starting point if I
really wanted to spend time on it.

At that point, not only is the text pretty, it can be cut and pasted with no
problem, and adds additional features to make the site more usable.

Drew