Web Application Blog

I agree with Steve Jobs.  Yes, Adage is a Microsoft Gold Partner and I said that.  A lot of controversy has been surrounding this lately with Apple refusing to support Flash on the iPhone and the iPad.  You can read more about it in this article. 

I of course don't really mean we should get rid of Flash as I think it is a great technology.  But I do think Flash is being overused as a tool in the web designer/developer toolkit.

Ok, to the point ... first I am going to assume you are looking to implement some animation on a portion of your web site that highlights your services or work examples, etc.  Stop reading if you are one of those people who think building entire sites in Flash is a good idea ... we are going to have to agree to disagree.

Over the last several projects, we have been doing more and more with CSS, DHTML, jQuery and JavScript to where animations do not require Flash with very similar effects.  Why is this good?   

• Less overhead
• No special tools required
• Search engine-friendly markup
• More control

Some examples of non-Flash animation: 

• Adage Home
• Adage Client Examples
• Lovejoy Home
• Seko Logistics Home

Again, no Flash needed!  Let me detail why this is good.

Less Overhead 

To provide the effects you see on those pages, a Flash player is not required.  Therefore, the Flash player does not have to start and you do not have to stare at a spinning circle or other graphic telling you to wait a minute to see what you visited the web site for.  With Flash, you often have to wait for the content that has been deemed important enough to draw your attention but in many cases you have to wait.

No special tools needed

When a Flash movie is made, it requires that a file first be created by a developer or designer using a desktop tool from Adobe called Flash Professional.  This is not cheap and can be cumbersome to use in the wrong hands.  So, if you want to make ANY changes, they have to be made by someone with the software (your developer).  There are ways around this but it takes more time and effort to make simple changes.

Search engine-friendly markup

Search engines do not view Flash content in the same manner that they do HTML text.  In the last few years, they have taken steps to try an index Flash content but it is far from perfect.  It is getting better but the accepted general rule of thumb is do not rely on the search engines to index Flash well if at all.

More Control

Flash content that you see on web sites derives from an original source file in which the designer or developer manipulates all of the text, graphics, audio, video and animations. Once a developer is done working in this file, they output this source file as a compiled Flash movie, at which point it becomes uneditable without going back to the original source in Flash. This creates a problem later when changes need to be made to the Flash movie and the developer has left town or they do not want to give you the original source file.  This is something that happens often.

jQuery must live on the site in standard JavaScript files that can be edited and accessed if needed with standard HTML editing tools.  So, if your developer skips out, you already have the "source" and someone with a little knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript can often make a change.

There must be a better way

Again, I am not advocating the elimination of Flash as a tool ... just suggesting a little more HTML, jQuery, and CSS can go a long way to a better web site.  HTML 5 is very compelling as an alternative but that discussion will have to wait for another blog.

I ran across an article this morning that deserves a look if you are endeavoring to complete a software development project anytime soon.  In summary a study was conducted of 450 organizations to determine how efficient their requirements gathering was and how it affected the overall short and long term success of the software development effort.  IAG Consulting found that "One-third of expenditures on development projects are squandered by three-quarters of organizations, because they lack consistent requirements and discovery management processes."

As the article points out, a number of factors contribute to this problem but overall, those companies that employ and agile development methodology are more successful at delivering high quality, successful projects.  You can read the Redmond Magazine article here.

Lean IT/ software development has become somewhat of a hot topic as of late.  As the picture might otherwise suggest below, getting lean is not as easy as taking a pill. It takes practice and hard work.

While we have been following an Agile development methodology for some time now, we realized we were have been adhering to lean development principles for some time.  

As a result, Patrick Emmons, our professional services director, felt it would be helpful if we shared how we apply these principles to our development process. You can read the entire article here.

Too often, we have people call us and ask (no joke), "I want a web application ... how much does something like that cost?".  This is akin to asking how much a house will cost without describing the number of rooms, bathrooms, garage, land, windows, square feet, light fixtures, etc.  However, software development is even more complicated.  A lot of questions need to be answered before the exact cost of a project can be known.  To best illustrate this, we often refer to the Cone of Uncertainty.  First discussed by NASA, it illustrates why in complicated projects, the true cost is not known until the project is complete.

In the beginning stages, the estimate can easily be off by a factor of 4x.  This means if you intend on getting estimates for development and the estimates range from $30,000 to $120,000 it is not abnormal.  Even when the requirements and user interface design is complete, the estimate can still be off by a factor of 25%.  Unfortunately, software development is a complex effort.  This is why we advocate smaller iterations and a more agile approach to application development.