Styleboost: Inspiration for webdesigners

Other reasons besides the time-consuming and annoying transitions? No. If you choose to go with Flash, it should add value, not subtract. Could there be a better example of when *not* to use flash? I don't think so.

Why not? Pushing the boundaries makes the web develop. Maybe he wanted to test and explore what flash is capable of. Unnecessary? Sure, but cool? Yes! Dont be so narrow minded ;) Btw this method using page anchors could be used i ajax apps too. Read more here: Fixing the Back Button and Enabling Bookmarking for AJAX Apps

Hey guys, thanks for your feedback on the site - both the well thought out stuff and the reactionary stuff - it all serves a purpose. Just to lend a little more insight into what we have done and why we did it, I thought I'd post a quick (hopefully:) comment. We used Flash for a ton of reasons, first and foremost I guess is to pose exactly the opposite question raised by Johan. Where he is asking, "Why Flash", we are attempting to say in a sense, "Why not Flash." If Flash provides you with all of the practical necessities of a website – Google indexing, browser functionality, dynamic linking, content management, traditional usability, and so on – and then adds the value of a single development platform where you can integrate clean logical design along with things like audio, video, animation (I will get to that:), server side functionality, etc., in a seamless deployment model, then why is it any less acceptable than other technologies? We technologists are all emotionally drawn to what we know best, so an objective conversation on this may be difficult to manage from either side but it might be a good exercise to try. For Pier, we have several specific goals for our site, but the short of it is that we need to add value to our organization. We do that in a couple different ways through the website, but in the end it all coagulates around generating more revenue. We generate more revenue when we attract more clients, we attract more clients when we demonstrate thought leadership in our field and when we engage visitors in the Pier story. This is obviously a very quick breakdown, but hopefully it will center things for those who care. So demonstrating thought leadership… We do this on our site by showing that we are willing and able to push the envelope of a technology - in this case Flash. We saw Flash as a platform with lots of potential but also lots of hang-ups. In addition to the practical issues mentioned above, Flash suffers from the stigma created by those with a design style that takes the user for granted and delivers designs that are less about communicating than they are about masturbating – if you know what I mean. We wanted to demonstrate that Flash is not an excuse to show your “mad skills” and call it corporate communications (communicate being the operative concept). In addition to solving some of Flash’s usability issues (we did not invent these ideas by the way, we just put our own spin on them and brought them all together in one place) as well as some of the traditional design flaws associated with Flash, we also thought we needed to show that Flash could be a better than average solution rather than just a solution on par with HTML/AJAX/ETC. So to accomplish that we built in technologies only available in Flash – things like the product we are calling 1984. This again accomplishes the goal of thought leadership and has already added enormous value to both Pier and its clients. Then engaging people in the Pier story… We felt that Flash deployed purposefully and well executed does a really great job of engaging people in the content of a website. Things like those annoying animations :) have the effect (we hope) of delivering content quicker than HTML (no refreshing) while keeping the users eyes oriented on what we want to display. So a quick animation in the center and right columns, for instance, centers their eye on the column in the middle of course but also allows them to take notice of the information on the right. Hopefully it provides a more seamless and engaging navigation experience than traditional HTML. When you add to that the capabilities of FLV (we have only gotten to about half of the rich media content we plan to put up), and even little things like being able to use our brand’s fonts throughout the site (thank you Adobe for custom anti-aliasing!), we felt that Flash offered us the best platform for telling a compelling story to our customers and potential customers. Well, this went on way too long – I am pretty passionate about this I guess. Again, I appreciate the comments and welcome any and all dialogue. Thanks everyone and thanks Johan for the link and the insight. We have been wondering for quite some time what people would think of this. --Mike C. Partner Pier Inc.

Oh noooo! I made a giant mess! Apparently I forgot paragraph tags, boooo me! Sorry!

Looks great Michael! But, in my opinion, there's still a lot to do... For instance, what about customisation? Why I couldn't change font size, or even colors using CSS? What about screen readers, PDA's, mobile phones? How to search for text within a page? And so on... Btw, that back-button solution doesn't work for me in Opera 9. Have a nice day!

Yeah I suppose customization is a decision we made. The site is controlled by CSS, we just didn't make the manipulation of that available to people. Screen readers, PDA's, mobile phones - we researched our audience (key decision makers in companies we target) and found the cost/benefit didn't pan out. I could see it being extremely relevant in another context however. Text search is a great point and something we have had a lot of back and forth on. I think more comments like this will encourage those among us that feel it is necessary. Thanks again, Mike

I still don't feel the use of Flash has added anything to this site that couldn't have been achieved with significantly less work via XHTML / CSS. In my opinion the choice of technology should suit the goal of the project. For an information heavy site that resembles a blog such as this one, Flash seems like a bizarre and unnecessarily complex choice of solution.

I think it looks great, but I have to say that I'm on the side of "why do this in flash?", for one simple reason, I can't use my scroll button on my mouse :)

But would we be discussing this site and giving it publicity if it wasnt done in flash?

When I first viewed the page in Safari, I thought: How awful. Each time I clicked a link, the page rebuilt completely. This is totally different in Firefox or Internet Explorer - and for those I cannot see a reason why not to use Flash. It adds usability as the content is displayed hierarchically and it adds style. Wouldn't be the same with HTML. The huge downside I see here: The site lacks a convenient navigation and overview. At first I thought the site only had 5 articles and that's it. It's hard to find the categories in the drop down menu. And when the goal was to attract key decision makers the question is: Do they have the time to scroll down full 6 pages just to see 16 client names Pier has worked for (even most article titles starting with "Pier..."). In the end I think this is a nice way to build a HTML website in Flash, but it doesn't take the full benefits of Flash. PS: I like the link preview tooltip.

There is a time for everything, and I have no doubt that there's lots of money to make when you're as good as Pier at making Flash sites. Because it's really well made, designed and coded. Most people won't notice it's Flash (except when you use one of the browsers that Pier didn't test for back button and scroll wheel support). But, as a web developer (and not so much a designer), I'm a bit put off by the choice of technology, for the sake of technology. I've both made and maintained my share of flash sites. There's three main reasons why I'm now only using Flash for sound, video and animation: First is the annoying lack of flexibility in Flash. The biggest downside to Flash development, as I see it, is exactly the seamless deployment model that Michael see as one of it's biggest advantages. Agree to disagree. I love the clear seams between CSS, JS and XHTML, that makes it easy to identify and fix problems, have several people working on different parts of the site. You can, of course, make code soup in XHTML, and have nicely structured apps made in Flash, but the nature of the technology makes it easier to keep things tidy in XHTML/JS/CSS. Second; the enormous amount of work you have to do in Flash, to get the basic functionality of a XHTML page - exactly the thing Pier have simulated. How much time did I spend to make scroll wheels and back buttons work on my latest site? None. I may manipulate the back button with JS if I want, but the default behavior that people expect, comes for free. The last thing I want to point out, is that Flash apps tend to age without dignity. Where CSS is very well suited for incremental updates, changing a background color in a complex Flash app can take a lot of time. You'll have to find out how the developer have constructed his/her app, figure out the namespace, look for the right movieclip and/or find the correct XML config file. Because of this, the Flash projects I've worked on have had a tendency to work and look at it's best on launch day, and loose it's perfection as real world use demands changes. The XHTML sites I'm working on is rarely perfect on launch, but have a tendency to get better and better (google for re-alignment). Again, there are lots of uses for Flash, and Pier Inc. is very well made. But I would be sad if designers think that this is the way to go for creating content-heavy sites. Instead, learn to love XHTML/CSS, and you'll find it's constraints quite liberating.

It's a pretty site, I'll give it that much and I could care less about the XHTML/CSS vs. Flash debate, but I have a hard time figuring out what it is you guys do exactly. I have a hard time finding examples of work you've developed and this interface, while pretty, is rather difficult to figure out. The thing that bothers me most about this site is that the information doesn't seem logically organized. When I use the navigation on the right side, I get another page that looks almost exactly the same. Am I looking at other work? I guess I have to read a couple paragraphs of tiny text (that I can't enlarge) just to figure out what the heck I'm looking at now. I feel like I didn't go anywhere and thus I have to work harder to figure out where I've gone.

One mayor flaw: Anti-aliased type. I can't read that shit without squinting.

major, even. D'oh! ;)

I think it's good. I like how animations attract the eye. I can barely imagine how much time did you spend working on this... is it worth it? And one last thing... I really miss the menu as someone above said

anybody had a open source example of how to make a side bar like this?

People who doesn't use flash very often say: "you didn't need flash for this, you didn't need flash for that..." I really hate that. If you made absolutly same web site but without flash it wouldn't be interesting like this one is. Michael congrats on a great web site!

You want to know what I see? A bunch of jealous (snore) borrrrring web designers who are stuck in a time warp. Deal with it. Flash is the future. It can do everything and more. I see a gorgeous example of an information heavy website using technology that ADDS to the experience. You CAN NOT do what they have done here in pure CSS. I think the site is magical. Great work!

The jealousy is oozing in some of these comments. The site looks fantastic. All animation is not evil. Try telling someone how you feel, really feel without moving your head, eyes or hands.