I can understand how some companies are still building entire websites in Flash. They get caught up in all the fancy, impressive, attention grabbing things that it can do. Don't get me wrong, I love Flash (on a good day) but I do realise that an entire Flash site is probably not the smartest option when looking into aspects like good SEO and usability. What I can not understand is how companies are still creating websites that are so incredibly slow. Recently I found myself looking for a site I could use to send Easter eggs to the Netherlands. I didn't think that search requirement was going to narrow my searching as much as it did. Eventually I came across a selection of 3 possible sites. 2 of these sites looked extremely plain and unprofessional, and the third I had originally overlooked as it was slow in loading so I gave up. Now because none of these sites gave me much confidence in their payment security, I chose a site based on looks. This may have been a silly move (and I am still waiting for the delivery to find out), but I needed a certain product to be delivered within a fast approaching time line.
I ended up purchasing from the site that I had originally given up on for being too slow. The reason? Because it looked the most professional. After I made the purchase, there was an optional survey about my experience on the site. I sent a response mentioning the excellent visible aspects of the site, but also that the serious lagging was letting it down. I received a lovely response within 24 hours, apologising for this lagging and offering an explanation outlining that they used to have an HTML site, but moved to Flash to enhance the user experience. While this doesn't make the slowness of the site acceptable, it does make me realise that this company, as well as many others are falling into this trap of trying to make their site so exciting that they are losing out on the functionality/usability aspect.
It is possible to have a site entirely made of Flash and make it usable; it is just not often that we come across such sites. Usually the more bells and whistles a Flash site has, the laggier it is going to become. Unless you are prepared to lose out on the usability front, the best option is probably a non-Flash site with Flash elements embedded on the page.
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