What Should Be Kept to a Minimum and Why

   

Design your document with your target audience in mind. While it may seem cool to you to have a one-minute-long introductory animation of how great you are, ask yourself how many times you've searched high and low for that Skip Intro button when viewing a Flash site on the Web. Does this introduction really serve a purpose? Does it contain crucial information for the end user ? If it doesn't, you may want to think twice about including it.

Another thing to ask yourself is how important is that soundtrack that loops over and over and over again in the background of your site? Is it truly adding any value to your content? Remember, sound files can add a tremendous amount of bulk to your published file. There's nothing wrong with using sound because it does heighten the user's experience, but too much sound can become annoying and possibly turn a potential client away. In other words, use sound sparingly.

TIP

If the option of using a mono sound file over a stereo sound file doesn't show too much quality loss, by all means use the mono. Keep in mind that a majority of people connected to the Web do not have their stereos hooked up to their computers and will probably be listening to your audio on inexpensive speaker systems. Therefore, high-quality stereo sound files are wasted .


Similar to the cautions of sound are the cautions of video. Although video can add to the user's experience, use it wisely and sparingly, as it too adds to the size of your Flash movie.

Avoid embedding fonts. Instead, use device fonts in your Flash document. Device fonts are already on the end user's computer. An example of a device font is _sans , which calls fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, or Verdana from a user's system. This saves you from forcing Flash to download font information and thereby increase your file size.


   
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Certified Macromedia Flash MX Designer Study Guide
Certified Macromedia Flash MX Designer Study Guide
ISBN: 0321126955
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 142

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