With some friends of mine recently returning from Vegas, it got me thinking of bright, eye-catching, cool, elaborate and over-the-top means to get a message across.

In the world of interactive, sometimes the use of widgets, Flash, or other “bright, flashing things” can interfere with the more important messages or tactics that a site is attempting to execute on. It reminds me of the traditional marketing/advertising star burst. In that case, what was (or god help us still currently is) intended or used as support or enhancement to the message simply became a distraction. That same sort of issue is now translating itself to the interactive space.

To be clear, Flash, widgets and the like aren’t necessarily a bad thing (unlike their traditional counterpart, star bursts). In fact, a majority of the time they can be a very well-used and effective tool. However, as more people and companies learn the ropes of the interactive space I just hope that we’ll avoid the use of Flash, for the sake of using Flash, but rather use it in a useful and supporting manner to progress the larger objectives and goals of the brand or company.

The problem is, too much Flash may help a site look cool and be eye-catching, but when it comes time to actually USE the site or get information what is that technology platform doing to the user’s interaction? How is the Flash interrupting a smart, clean and strategic navigation structure or information architecture? How is too much Flash causing longer load times and a slower site? How is a site made of entirely Flash hurting our online visibility in search engines? How are you hurting yourself with a primarily Flash site, when a part of your audience doesn’t have the latest versions of Flash or even have it all?

Without the intent of bashing anyone or any particular site, I’ve included some examples where they might consider those types of questions to provide a more usable product for their customers:

-www.rmgconnect.com
-www.innerstrengthstudio.com
-www.tampax.com (this isn’t flash, but I just can’t believe they have sideways navigation…did I miss something?)
-Just about any car company website