via Spahr.org: Scient redesigns their "site", it's 100% Flash.

Is this even a "web presence" as James calls it, given there isn't really any HTML?

Problems that immediately come to mind:

- What are the search engines going to index? (Nothing. Think about the % of referrals your corporate site gets from search engines)

- How do you bookmark a "page"? (You can't. cf: Why Frames Suck)

- How do you present the "site" (and I use that term loosely) to people with disabilities? I'm sure it passes the Bobby tests, but only because there's nothing to test.

This seems like a pretty stupid idea to me. Is it really THAT important to have everything pixel perfect? I don't think so.

Maybe this would work for the kind of web application where bookmarkability isn't an issue, but not for a company's web presence.

Every time I go to that site I have to follow the same click path (which might not be the shortest click path either, but the one I have discovered) to get where I was the last time.

It's like playing Myst or Riven (but worse)... to get to that one place you have to move through the world until you get there -- you might not know the best way, it might take you twice as long as other players.

At least in Myst/Riven, you start off where you left off so you don't have to start every game session from the beginning of the game!

I wondered if maybe they were leaving a cookie to tell their Flash app which screen I last saw -- but no, when I go back to the site after restarting my browser I'm taken back to the opening screen of their presentation.

There's a reason why the web was based on HTML and not on HyperCard. Hell, even with HyperCard you could address the screen you were on:

Ficticious HyperCard address:

card id 5232 of stack http://foo/bar.stack

or perhaps as an URL:

http://foo/bar.stack/5232

Two BIG thumbs down for the Scient site. Bad bad bad.

How appropriate that the current Alertbox is: Flash: 99% Bad. (I haven't even read the article yet, I found it when looking for the Why Frames Suck link)