Being reminded of the importance of designing and developing usable flash sites/applications, i went out googling to once again refresh my memory. Starting of at Nielsen to see what i don’t agree with at first, i came across i nice pdf document ‘Usability of Flash Applications and Tools’. Posting it here for people that are interested in it also. (And yes, not being so is a bad thing ;) ).

You can checkout the pdf document written by Nielsen through their own site , or through direct download of flashZone in case the original mirror dissapears.

This is not a complete Nielsen study report though. It’s a 91 page excerpt of the complete pdf. Plenty of interesting things to read though.

Still, the struggle remains…. when do we let design rule over usability and vice versa. One of the great features of Flash development, is the freedom you have to create whatever creative thought you might come up with. In my opinion, an important argument to choose for Flash as your developing environment.

But as the call for useable flash increases….. which is a good thing… isn’t there a risk all flash developers tend to choose the more ‘usable’ way and that in a couple of years we see tons of ‘component’ spattered flash sites…. for the sake of creativity…. let’s hope not. Be reasonable in your design descisions, never forget your audience and what they are supposed to achieve when visiting your site. And if your goal is to show them pretty bouncing bubbles…then by all means….show them the bubbles!