Michael Surtees of DesignNotes brought up a very good point in his blog, "Why Flash Should Not Be Used for Support Pages." The title pretty much sums up the point, but it opens up an interesting larger issue: When is it appropriate to consider/use Flash® or Silverlight® development in website design?

Now I know it sounds crazy coming from a rich Internet application development company, but we also specialize in user experience design. We won’t lead you down that path unless it assists the functionality of a site, or is used to wow your user in a meaningful way.

Want vs. Need (Leisure vs. Function)

It pretty much comes down to these two scenarios: need versus want-based websites. Think about it this way, when you go to a news site or your favorite online store are you expecting to be wowed? Yes, because it is something you are willing to spend time doing, it is a leisure activity that fills your want for more information, new clothes to look at, videos etc.

When you are searching for need-based websites: Google™, banks, and support/contact pages you are more functionally-focused. How much does it drive you crazy if any of these things are slow? You need information, and you needed it five minutes ago, so a video or a slow-loading plugin is not going to help matters. You run the risk of associating your site with a lack of functionality and frustration, which means some people may not want to use it. This does not mean that the site has to be boring or bare-bones, but a healthy mix of functionality and design definitely needs to come into play.

Plug-in Issues

Another reason it is important to consider the cost-benefit of adding rich Internet application development through Flash or Silverlight is plug-in issues. Because there are many, many types of users that go to websites (from tech-savvy to basic users) they will have a range of different browsers, browser ages, and familiarity with plug-ins. While the technical user likely won’t have a problem with plug-ins (they’ll likely have them installed already) the more novice users will probably be thrown off. Until we get to the Promised Land called HTML 5 (where hopefully these plug-ins will run natively within the browser framework), plug-in considerations for your user are important to recognize.

Exceptions

• Holidays on the Internet are the exception to most rules. This is where the wow-factor changes. Originally we mentioned that people expect to be impressed when browsing leisure websites. The holidays mean business, and if your site gets bogged down by Flash-y elements, people will not be inclined to shop. They will find another place to get what they are searching for. Try cutting back and optimizing your site for speed and performance during these critical times to ensure that you do not lose business.

• Instructional information sites. The occasion does arise where people need to see media in order to get the information that they need, such as instructional videos. In this case, Flash and Silverlight development is needed and essential. Silverlight might be the best choice, as it uses IIS Smooth streaming to detect the bandwidth of the user, and auto-corrects the quality to bring uninterrupted streaming. This means the video quality and the rich Internet functionality depend less on the website itself (a big relief to you) and depends more on the bandwidth of the user. Silverlight steps in and makes sure that neither is sacrificed.

• Mobile, mobile, mobile. It can be fun to think about the possibilities of rich Internet functionality on your mobile phone, but there are situations where it just doesn’t work. People are obsessed with both function and leisure on their smartphones, which can make this a tricky balance to strike. Our suggestion would be to limit the amount of Flash on phones (as it doesn’t live natively in the phone) to critical functionality (videos etc.). Silverlight does live natively in the framework of the Windows® Phone 7 SDK, which will definitely help mobile application development for the Windows Phone 7.