You heard me – it sucks! I’m especially looking at you, Flash developers.

To be fair, yours isn’t the only one that sucks – all splash pages (enter gross generalization here) suck. The internet is about content, and splash pages, especially those containing the ubiquitous and oh-so-irrelevant ‘Flash introduction’.

The more clicking a user has to do to get to the content he’s looking for (or the content you want him to find), the less likely he is to actually get there. If I’m shopping for an item and I can buy it at two stores, but one of the stores has three doors blocking the item and the other store has no doors at all, which store am I likely to enter? Common sense would dictate that I would enter the store that’s easier to navigate and has less barriers between me and the content I want.

So why, then, are Flash splash pages so popular? The number of ‘professional’ websites that have useless splash pages – often in a slow-loading medium such as Flash – astounds me. Clients usually ask for splash pages because it gives them a chance to show off, either that they have a big budget or that they like to be f(F)lashy. But what these clients don’t realize is that a splash page can often trip up search engine spider bots, since it represents a barrier between the spider and the real content. The worst case scenario is that the spider will index only the splash page, leaving your content in the dark.

Splash pages are usually self-indulgent and extraneous. Moreover, those who push for their inclusion on a website usually don’t understand the internet as a medium. Flash/splash advocates usually have too much money and not enough brains, so they just throw a whole bunch of cash at a company because they want something that looks ‘cool’ or ‘flashy’ or ‘impressive’ or whatever; usability and content definitely are not priorities. The minority of splash pages that do have content could probably be retooled so that the content is just on the ‘main’ homepage of the website. Jared Spool, who is with User Interface at Macromedia, is quoted on MarketingSherpa.com as saying:

When we have clients who are thinking about Flash splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on sale today. (taken from SEOmoz)

Could you imagine that? I know I’d last about six seconds before either punching the mime in the face or going to a different store. And, in website terms, since you can’t usually punch site owners in the face, then you’ll probably just go somewhere else for the same information.

Jakob Nielson, who would get my vote for the President of the Internet, lists Flash – that fixture of bad splash pages – as one of the Top Ten Web Design Mistakes  of 2005 (all of which still apply today). Nielson writes that Flash intro pages are “so bad that even the most clueless Web designers won’t recommend them, even though a few (even more clueless) clients continue to request them”. Smashing Magazine has an excellent showcase of splash pages, from the very worst to the poorly designed to the not-so-intolerable-but-still-unnecessary. Anytime I come across a splash page – especially one done in Flash – I turn around and walk my virtual self out the door.

I’ll end with another golden Nielson quote from the same article as above – some advice on how to design your website so that you don’t need Flash, splash, or anything of the sort:

Flash should not be used to jazz up a page. If your content is boring, rewrite text to make it more compelling and hire a professional photographer to shoot better photos. Don’t make your pages move. It doesn’t increase users’ attention, it drives them away; most people equate animated content with useless content.