Avatars are good because…

Some customers are auditory learners – Highly visual information just doesn’t suit some brains.

They can help you do complicated things – People learn best from other people, not necessarily from reading something, and avatars provide some of that interaction.

Avatars are evil because…

They’re creepy! – If you must have an avatar, I recommend having an ordinary video shot of yourself, rather than an animated avatar. Especially one with an electronic voice.

People don’t always have or like sites with sound­ – I’ll vouch for the truth of this – I’m one of them. I can skim read much faster than the time it takes for someone to have a casual conversation with me.

Bottom line? If you have a site where people might need to be walked through complex tasks, or if the avatar is opt-in rather than opt-out (by exiting the site!), then go for it.

Don’t have an internal site search bar? Why, if Jakob Nielsen saw you in the street he’d rap you across the knuckles, young whippersnapper! Seriously though, an internal search bar is vitally important to the success of most sites. Your web marketing effort and SEO will bring visitors, but if they can’t find what they want, it will all be for naught.  Here’s why a search bar should be your next website investment.

Because it’s actually pretty easy!

Ask your SEO firm for help if you aren’t sure how to get a ‘Powered by Google’ search bar, at the minimum. It’s easy!

Because if they can’t find what they want, they’ll leave

There are thousands of sites on the net, and quite a few selling the same thing as you. If you make life hard for your customers, they’ll go to a site that doesn’t.

Because it gets you lots of sweet, sweet data!

Want to know what language your customers use? What they really want when they come to your site? The data from a search bar tells you much more explicitly than any other analytics tool.

Because your customers are ‘the searching type’

If your customers found you through SEO and search, they’ll certainly appreciate the same convenience within your site.

-Nnnn- Flash is bad -nnn- does not compute

What’s the problem?

Before we can start extolling the virtues of Flash, we probably should run through why Nielsen famously said that it was 99% bad. Bear in mind that Nielsen is a web usability expert, and most of his statements are made from that position. His arguments against the use of Flash in websites were:

• The use of Flash in ‘forced’ intros
• The Back button doesn’t work, neither do link colours or the text zoom
• Just because we can animate something, doesn’t mean we should – Flash is distracting
• It is superficial – no concrete value

Another common complaint about Flash is that it hurts SEO efforts, as any text within Flash isn’t indexed by the search engines, and is therefore ‘wasted’ from an SEO perspective.

The Skip Intro button

This is not only available on the majority of sites with Flash intros, it is now also available as a page opening option from Google results. On sites that do force intros, users typically complain so much that they are taken down – forced Flash intros are certainly not regarded as best practice in web design nowadays. Problem solved.

Logistics

Yes, not having a back button, links that change colour when they’ve been visited, or text zoom is bad. But if you don’t make an entire website in Flash (not usually recommended anyway), this won’t be a problem.

Distraction

Yes, Flash is distracting, in the same way that animated banner advertisements are. Just use it for emphasis and attention, and don’t overdo it.

Flash …used on top ranking sites

There are hundreds of high profile, highly trafficked sites on the net that use Flash. They may use it for illustration rather than explanation and have it not as a core part of the site. Or, it may have concrete value -  the Barbie site with Flash games is one that comes to mind.

Flash and SEO

Lastly, without getting into the technical details, it is now actually possible to have Flash that is indexed by the search engines.

There are certainly some valid complaints about Flash … but don’t listen to that big meanie that says it is 99% bad!