Nice Flash

I'm not a fan of Flash-based websites in general, partly because Flash tends to be used unnecessarily (just to be flashy), partly because of niggles like problems with bookmarking and partly because of the accessibility issues. Despite this, I occasionally find a Flash-based site that manages to make me forget all that and just think 'cool, nice design'. Browsing CSS Mania, as I often do, I came across InsideDown - the portfolio site of Paul Mealy. Paul's site itself isn't Flash-based, just a nice (mostly) valid XHTML website that keeps things simple. His portfolio examples however, include some Flash work that's just cool. Outside Source Design's (seemingly the company he works/worked for) website is pure Flash, and about as accessible as a room with no doors, but it's smoothly animated, loads fast (granted I'll have to test it again when not on a fat work internet connection) and has nice graphics. If anything, it's almost too quick-loading in places as I wasn't sure at first whether it had loaded a new page or it'd just been part of a set animation for the one I was on. Further down the portfolio is a site for Marketpro that again isn't in the least bit accessible for anyone who can't view Flash, but for those who can it's stylish (love the menu, which succeeds where similar menus are usually unintuitive and irritating), simple and the transition between pages is super-smooth. Of course both of these sites have most of the problems that makes me usually hate Flash - no bookmarking as they're all part of the same page; no status bar help to show where links are going and absolutely no good if you don't have Flash or you use a screen-reader. Not even a 'click here for non-Flash version'. But to look at them, they're a pleasure. Designs like these show that Flash can be done very well (i.e. not over-the-top), but also that there's still a way to go before it's (in my opinion) worth using due to accessibility and usability issues. Yes, there are work-arounds to make Flash reasonably accessible, but it takes a lot more development (and more importantly planning) time to do and too few people making these sites seem to either know how to do it, or care. Anyway, I think I'm about to start going round in circles on this, so I'll end with: I've been given new faith that Flash can be done well, but I still wouldn't use it for a whole site yet as it's still got too many problems for usability and accessibility... ... and I can't do Flash :D