Web designers should have a version of the hypocratic oath. First do no harm. Who would have thought the Olympics would do harm to a website. I certainly wouldn't have. At the start of this year's Olympics I innocently signed on to a certain Country's Bank's website. You could say it was the Bank of Said Country. There was greeted by a very "cool" flash piece inviting me to click on it to join in the Olympic festivities by creating fireworks. What a cool idea. What could be the downside of celebrating the Olympics with digital fireworks. Well, unfortunately, a lot.

The nice thing about Bank of This Country's site has always been the user-friendly nature of it. It is in my opinion, the best designed bank site on the web. Naturally, I thought this interactive toy would continue this trend. I rolled over to click on it and found that the speed of my mouse movement had been halved. The flash file had hamstrung my computer's processor. This, strangely, I could live with. That was, until I attempted to type in my user information. Somehow, the flash file had also disabled the form fields on the site. Had I been using Internet Explore 5 or any version of Netscape, I would have expected this. Not the case. I had to delay my banking that day because everytime I returned to the site, I had the same experience. Fortunately, I was not the only one who noticed this. I have no evidence of this, save the fact it was down the next day.

The moral of this story is don't let flash designers loose on a website that is visited less for it's wow factor, and more to perform specific and important tasks. If you do, make sure the file is tested across every possible platform and setting. Otherwise, it could harm your business' reputation, and cast a negative light on the Olympics online, and who wants that kind of reputation.

Mel Hogan has worked with some of the world’s largest brands, including Yahoo!, Microsoft, Hilton Hotels and Harley Davidson Motorcycles, just to name a few. He has used his experience to gain solid understanding of large brand strategy as it applies to online and advertising. Learn more about Mel.

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