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There
are some mighty fine and dazzling sites out there for those who
have the technology. As discussed in "audience", you will be limiting
your potential viewers by use of the higher-end web magic.
FRAMES
are used very commonly - when one area of the browser window stays
put while you can move around in the other area. They're commonly
used to keep the navigation icons in one place while the user moves
around within the site, or to force the user to keep seeing ads
while they look at different pages of content.
They
can cause all sorts of problems. You can get "trapped" in a frame.
They can limit your Search Engine Placement, as often the engine
only reads the frameset, and misses seeing your actual content.
And if you're trying to print, good luck. You'll probably get each
frame printed on a separate page. And as for bookmarking... *sigh*
- people can end up returning to a content frame directly without
the navigation frame in place. That's no fun at all. And the list
goes on.
Personally,
on the whole I hate frames. If someone's managing to scroll down
in your content, they know how to scroll back to your nav icons.
Placing navigation at both the top and bottom of a page means it's
never too far away. I will (and do) use frames, but I always try
to have a no-frame alternative version available to users.
ANIMATION
comes in many forms. Animated gifs are the only form of animation
that can be seen by the whole web population, but they're usually
associated with amateurish homepages - and they can look pretty
tacky. They can also be quite large files so their use is limited.
Plug-Ins such as Flash make much smaller files, but will only work
for a percentage of web users. The last statistics I heard were
that 75% of the web are Flash-enabled, which makes it the most widespread
Plug-In. But ask yourself, do you really need animation?
SOUND
can be a tricky issue. Depending on the user's platform (Windows,
Mac etc) and their browser settings, placing sound automatically
on a web page will have very inconsistent results. Also, it can
be very annoying in a workplace. I recommend avoiding it, it's just
too gimmicky.
Having
sound as downloadable files (eg, MP3s) is a good added extra if
it's relevant to your site - only people who have the facility to
use them will bother downloading. The same can be said for streamed
audio. Fine and dandy, but make it an optional bonus for those who
can use it.
VIDEO
is even more problematic. Unless someone has great equipment, a
fast connection and the Moon's in Jupiter, it won't work or will
look terrible. A webcam can be a fun addition to a site, but like
sound, think of it as a bonus extra for the lucky ones.
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