technology tip of the month Pointer and Clicker Article

 

March/April 2002 - Review of Educational Uses of Macromedia Flash
By: Virgil E. Varvel Jr.
Keywords: Macromedia Flash, Shockwave, Online Education, Review, Evaluation; Exemplary; Educational Multimedia

 

Navigation

Many Web sites also make use of Flash as a form of interactive navigation for the site. The two sites below were two of the most complete navigation schemes I was able to find of an educational nature. You can reach pretty much everything from within the Flash movies, and they are well organized and understandable. They are also well organized from a programming standpoint for the file sizes are kept small to allow quick movement within the site. These reasons make the following sites exemplary.

  • Westminster College, © 2001 Westminster College, http://www.westminstercollege.edu/, accessed March 2002.
    Not only is the navigation through Flash, but a lot of the content is as well.
  • The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, no copyright information given, http://www.ipo.co.il/ , accessed March 2002.
    This site actually integrates both HTML navigation for major topics with Flash navigation for sub topics.

There is a pitfall to both of these sites though and a common one at that. These sites fail to make accommodations for those with disabilities or who choose not to view Flash content. That is, neither site has a Flash minus or text only version. Especially from the standpoint of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, a large section of their potential market, those with visual disabilities, cannot easily access information on the site. There may be a text only site somewhere (or at least a more easily navigable site for the disabled), but it cannot be accessed directly from this Flash site. Westminster College overcomes this obstacle though by providing a phone number in plain text. The other text links are useful for navigation, but they only take you eventually to other Flash content. Thus the page does not really meet accessibility standards, but the phone link does provide an alternative means of acquiring the information. So while Flash can provide a really dynamic navigation experience for the viewer, it can also be a potential danger. The time needed to make the site accessible to all needs to be weighed against the advantages.

 

 

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