Flash slideshow or Single picture for website?

[sunithshyam]

I am creating a new website for photographs. I am undecided on whether to put a flash slideshow or a single image on the main page. My main concern is the time the flash presentation takes to load. I don’t want visitors to get put off by the time it takes to load and move on to other websites. Using just one image on the main page is kinda limiting, I shoot portraits, fashion, wedding etc. Getting one single image to represent all of this is a challenge. What I would like to know is your preference, would you wait for that extra second or two for the flash slide to load or would you prefer a website which loads up faster but has less images on the front page?

The website link is given below, (it is still being edited, so any feedback would be welcome )
** Portrait and*Art - Photography - Home

Sunith Shyam

[sybren]

You could just load the first image, then load the others in the background while the visitor is viewing the first image.

I'd worry about general usability far more than loading time. There is no easy way to browse through the images. When I click on an image, a new page opens (horrible!) and another website loads, where the image that I clicked on is not visible.

These are much more serious issues than mere loading time. To view a photo larger, I need to:

- open your website
- get myself to an interesting photo, which means waiting until it scrolls past
- click on the photo
- wait until the photo I just clicked on scrolls past again
- click on the photo
- I still see a small photo, so I have to click on it again

Think about whether you really expect people to go through all that in order to get a proper look at your photos.

[sunithshyam]

Well, that is another concern I am trying to deal with.... I am using a third party slideshow, and I dont want the other website to open when you click on the slide show... I couldn't figure out how to do that in html (not that I am any good in HTML)... If you know about any good slideshow software which can create slides for the web, I would be grateful...

[sybren]

Well... the first step of building a website is actually learning how to build a website. At least learn HTML and CSS, it really isn't that difficult. http://www.w3schools.com/ is quite a good start.

[navcom]

Are you going to use your website for business or is it just a portfolio you will be sending friends and aquaintences to?

If it's for business, load time is everthing. The average attention span of a customer is about 10 seconds. If it takes longer than that to load, they are off to another site.

Whether to use Flash or not is a hotly contested topic. I fall on the "avoid it at all costs if at all possible" side of the fence. If your goal is to sell something, your main concern is getting customers to view your website. If it's full of time-wasting gadgets like sound (that sometimes confuses your browser), time-wasting intro pages, Flash loading, and spinning and whirling icons and sliders, many (not all) customers will consider it too much and move on. It can become sensory overload to many on top of it. And confusion doesn't sell.

According to a poll I read awhile back (I wrote down the top five), the number one most-annoying feature that drives potential customers from a website is background sound. Most people detest it. The second was Flash intro pages. The third was "flash for the sake of flash". The fourth was not offering credit card processing. And fifth was too much "sidebar" and pop-up advertising.

That means that two of the top three reasons a customer will leave your site are Flash-related...and sound could also be Flash-related depending on how you look at it.

You have 10 seconds to win the internet surfer. Use it wisely. Better to get the content up and in their face as quickly as possible and design the site to be user-friendly and easy to navigate. That way they stay and look at what you are offering. It doesn't matter how good your products are...if they don't stay, they don't pay.

I was told by someone that "all good photographers use Flash on their websites". Then I did a search for landscape photographers on Google. Most (not all) of the page one hits do not use Flash....or use Flash very sparingly. And their sites are very un-cluttered and easy to navigate through.

Photographers are an artistic lot. It's only natural that we want to design flashy pages that show our creative sides. But the successful one's seem to be able to stand on their work alone, not on the flashy design of their website. To me it seems that the successful photographers have straight-forward websites.

All this being said, I do have a short flash slideshow on my photography website, though I wil be removing it with the redesign set to hit the web in the next week or two. It's really not needed. Also, photography is not my bread and butter.

[sunithshyam]

Thanks for the info, Sybren. You been really helpful.

[sybren]

Originally Posted by navcom

Whether to use Flash or not is a hotly contested topic. I fall on the "avoid it at all costs if at all possible" side of the fence.

I'm curious, what do you think about my portfolio site?

[candleman]

my site is Flash.. this is 2009, not 1995
i chose flash because this is photography.. and it needs to look good.
if you dont have a store or studio, this is your only shop front, and only impression of brand and quality.

plus its a template so its idiot proof and easy. i dont have time to waste (nor care) about how and why hosting and blah blah blah.. i've got better things to.
PLUS, the people who cant afford a fast enough computer to view a website, probably cant afford a luxury like a photographer anyway.

[navcom]

Originally Posted by candleman

my site is Flash.. this is 2009, not 1995
i chose flash because this is photography.. and it needs to look good.
if you dont have a store or studio, this is your only shop front, and only impression of brand and quality.

plus its a template so its idiot proof and easy. i dont have time to waste (nor care) about how and why hosting and blah blah blah.. i've got better things to.
PLUS, the people who cant afford a fast enough computer to view a website, probably cant afford a luxury like a photographer anyway.

My friend, to each his own. Flash has it's place. If it didn't, it would have died a long time ago. And while this isn't 1995, speed is just as important, if not more important, than it was back then.

My post was meant to explain my experiences with the business end of web design. I do not claim to be a "website expert" by any means...only one with some experience. I've run internet businesses for several years. I've made quite a bit of spare change doing it. Except for my "pet" photography site, they have been retail/manufacturing related and not photography related.

My own experience has been that business websites should be designed for one purpose..to sell a product. Anything extra risks detracting from the purpose. Are my site(s) perfect? Probably not! But I can tell you that when we have included a lot of Flash in our sites, we have received complaints. I've never received a complaint about our site(s) being boring without it (including my photography site when I started that a few years back without Flash). And the non-flash sites do their job quite nicely...they sell product.

As far as the comment that "this is photography, and it needs to look good"...."good" is in the eye of the beholder. We have done market research. And if our market research tells me that 4 out of 10 customers will leave my site simply because they don't want to wait more than ten seconds or they are annoyed by all the stuff bouncing across the screen, then to those 4 people, it doesn't look good.

And remember...they made their decision based on my web design, not on my products!

Of course, as I stated at the beginning...to each his own. Some folks do well with Flash. But most that do keep it straight-forward and simple. It has nothing to do with "old-school" or "old design habits". It has everything to do with the population's attention span and their expectations of the speed of the internet...as well as their personal taste and what they find annoying.

It's just simple business savvy...and there are no set rules to use it or not. But usage of Flash should contribute to the purpose of the business site...to sell the product or service. If it's there only to "make it look cool", then the point of the site is not necessarily business.

Now if the OP is not intending to use the site for business, then my posts are a mute point.

[navcom]

Originally Posted by sybren

I'm curious, what do you think about my portfolio site?

As I stated, I'm not a "web analyst". Your site does not appear to sell a product so it doesn't really fit into any "business rules". It's a portfolio and you don't have to worry about keeping customers on the site to buy something.

If it were a business site, your market analysis would determine if it works or not. Have you done analysis or do you push clients to it with a referral such as a business card?

Your photo work is good.