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MTV Chooses Web Standards And Flunks Flash Website

UX Magazine reports that MTV drops their Flash based website in favor of a common-sense web standards based solution.

It seems the Flash version was not complementing their content and the users were bitching about it… as they mention on their blog. I for one am glad to see this happen. As good as Flash can be, nothing can beat the speed, accessibility and plain old simplicity of an XHTML site, as far as content is concerned.

Some of the reasons for the change are listed in the MTV blog post describing the changes. Just to list some of them:

  • It’s faster
  • Simplified navigation
  • Better search
  • No autoplaying video

Besides from that, there are 463 comments on the post at the moment, which shows that there still is a strong and opinionated discussion about Webstandards vs Flash.
From a usability point of view, this really is an interesting discussion. In my opinion, it’s very interesting to see that MTV actually bypasses the frontal no-brain discussion of webstandards vs. Flash. Instead, they address the rationale behind the decision: Make website faster, make content easier to find, search engine friendly, unobtrusive content.

These are the reasons and rationale behind what users really want and are interested in. Personally, I don’t care what technology is used for a website, as long as it addresses the basic needs of what users want. (You know, not basic as in food and sleep, but basic needs for finding relevant content, not being interrupted by fancy disturbances, etc.)

It’s encouraging to see that MTV is interested in taking this dialog with the users — and also very interesting to see how this dialog evolved.

More info:

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This entry was posted by Jesper Rønn-Jensen on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 19:38 (GMT-1) and is filed under Web Standards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “MTV Chooses Web Standards And Flunks Flash Website”

  1. Carvoeiro in Portugal Says:
    August 28th, 2008 at 15:38 (GMT-1)

    I think its a plus for the users, and also easier for them to continually publish the website with new information. Being search engine friendly even more important nowadays and they will benefit from that in the short a long term. I have never been a flash fan, because it’s hard to index the information inside it!