Please stop trying so hard to show us how cool you are.

I was very excited about the future of Flash when Macromedia resolved the navigation problems inherent in earlier versions with the release of MX. It meant whole sites could be designed with no concern for HTML mark-up limitations and still reasonably meet usability standards.

Alas, Flash designers are still too tickled with their capacity to perform fancy tricks. Oooh, ahhh I made the buttons fly in one at a time. Oooh, ahhh I don't have to clutter up the screen with all those unnecessary words. Isn't it wonderful!

MEMO FROM YOUR USERS: We don't have the time to sit around and watch your buttons fly in. And those 'unnecessary words' are called LABELS -- and we don't have the time to sit around and mouseover them one at a time to figure out what channel we want either.

The lastest violator: The Color, Contrast and Dimension in News Design package from Poynter.org (and shouldn't they know better?)

P.S. There must be a way to make text in Flash movies highlight-able and copy-able (in fact, I thought that was the default). Let's please start doing it.

Oct. 20, 2002