Ever since Adobe acquired Macromedia, just about every page at adobe.com has been thick with Flash content. Their home page, especially, always had lots of motion and giant interactive flash banners. Recently, they’ve been doing some redesign work on the site, and I was extremely surprised today when I noticed that the entire site is almost completely void of any Flash content. Flash is used very sparingly (and tastefully). And, the home page currently has no Flash at all.
Given Adobe’s past use of Flash, and their very public feud with Apple regarding the quality, stability, and usefulness of Flash, I found this new, subtle use to be very uncharacteristic of them.
Now, I’m not complaining at all. I personally think the site is better without all that overuse of Flash. But, it does make me wonder if Adobe is rethinking exactly how and when Flash should be used.
I was actually kind of surprised when Adobe starting adding all that Flash to their site in the first place. Many years ago Macromedia tried to convert their entire site to Flash, and it was a dismal failure. One which they spent months undoing. I would have thought that Adobe would learn from Macromedia’s mistake.
So, is Adobe rethinking it’s position on how Flash should be used, or have the Flash designers simply not caught up with the web designers, and all that Flash will be back eventually? Only time will tell.