I have an interesting design “problem” I’m working on. A client wants a new website. They would like it to become a useful and usable resource. The target audience for this site come from rural or economically-challenged demographics. So bandwidth and old technology constraints are real issues that need to be addressed by the design. Quite an interesting challenge in that regard. The client however seems to really want to use Flash – mainly just to rotate some imagery around. In other words, it serves no useful purpose other then decoration. Normally that would be fine, but considering the target audience and the constraints we’re dealing with, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to add Flash. What do you think?
Update: So the after some discussion, the client decided to do go ahead with Flash movie, understanding that perhaps some of the target audience would not see it or have an optimal experience with it. The client did reduce the amount of images that the Flash movie uses, which reduced the file size some 100 Kb which is good.
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4 responses to “Bandwidth and technology constraints”
If you just need some image rotatin, couldn’t you just use JavaScript? Libraries like scriptaculous and jQuery can do some nice effects, though I’m not sure if they will spin images around. Worth a look, though.
Thanks for your comment Derek. I should clarify “rotating” – the client wants to be able to change the images over time to dynamically change the “look” of the site – and if it happens to “fade-in” and “fade-out” while doing that, all the better. Also they want to, perhaps a year down the road, easily change up these images with new ones. So the solution needs to be “client” usable/changeable. I’m not sure if a JavaScript framework would make this easily possible. I have considered it though. One reason I think the client is fixated on Flash is that I created a Flash “rotating banner/image-news” app for one of their other sites. So they see that and go, “Why can’t we use something similar here?”
I don’t see any problem with using Flash as long as you ensure that the site degrades gracefully (ie, is usable without flash, preferably without the user even knowing that they are missing anything), and the Flash is *very* lightweight, so it doesn’t jam up the non-broadband connections.
As far as JavaScript libraries to do fancy effects, I’ve heard good things about the Processing library, and I have even seen a very impressive JavaScript Guitar Hero game made using it, though I have not used it myself.
On the other hand, Flash may be more widely suported than some more advanced JavaScript effects.
As far as the raw requirement, rotating images can be done client side with or without flash, and it can also be done server-side, which seems like the best solution to me because it doesn’t rely on any client capabilities other than image display.
Ryan, I think that a server-side script would have been the most optimal solution. But I don’t have access to their server, don’t have the server technology they are using nor did I have the time to do something in this regard. Along with all the other mentioned constraints was a project deadline of September 30th (end of the fiscal year and the budget needs to be used by then). So I had about two weeks to design and develop this site, including client communications and approval processes.