A List Apart 143: Web Design, Code, Content features a double issue on Flash MX this week.
Joe Clarck evaluates Flash MX in context of WAI and Section 508 guidelines (accessibility)
Andre Kirkpatrick tackles Flash MX from the developer's perspective, with information of how authors can easily generate accessible Flash content.
David Emberton writes at ActionScript.com : Flash MX Security Whitepaper
Twenty three pages of what you need to know about the Flash Player 6 sandbox security system, and how it can help you build better dynamic apps.[...]
Flash Player 6 features a more sophisticated setup. Each movie loaded from a separate domain exists in its own "sandbox," effectively cutting it off from additional domains unless you specificy them via the System.security object. The rules are slightly different for standalone players. As far as I can tell, System.security is undocumented anywhere except in this whitepaper.
ABCNEWS.com writes about Online Ads Become Active and Intrusive.
They have all failed, banner ads, skyscrapers, pop-up ads, etc. We all ignore them, and almost nobody click on them anymore. Click through rates used to be at 5-6% in the early days of the web, but now the average click through rate is two-tenths of a percent.
The next move is commercials you won't be able to ignore, full page ads that separate you from the content you want to see. For Flash developers, there should be a lot more work coming up making light-weight multimedia commercials for the web.
Full page ads will probably annoy the users, but I belive they are the only way to get the average web-users attention these days. And I would survive having to deal with them, as long as I am given the option to pay a reasonable fee to view a site without commercials.
What do you think?
Chris MacGregor has called out to Come on... upgrade!
Amongst other, he writes:
With the advanced features of Flash MX, including the long-awaited standard UI components, we in the Flash community need to promote the Flash 6 plug-in on our sites. From a usability perspective alone, having standard interactions that work the same across different Flash sites (like scroll-bars) is a tremendous boost to the user-experience that Flash offers
Having the Flash 6 player accepted as soon as possible will most certainly be beneficial to everyone producing Flash content, in many aspects including improved usability. But we are again in a situation where using the newest Flash player from Macromedia is a double edged sword, do we really want people to upgrade to a player we all know has several serious bugs?
I am still waiting for the announcement from Macromedia regarding the fixes for the Flash 6 player...
