FLASH
Why not to use it, or to use is sparingly.

We feel that all of the fancy items like "Flash Page" for your 1st page or any page is really not needed for any business. Most people can not wait to get by that page and get to your actual site. You just need to have a web presence and to explain what you do to help you generate more revenue for your business. We have found that people the come across a flash page can not get past that page fast enough by hitting the skip button. So we state that if the customers don't want it why should you? But if Flash is wanted we have recommendations for you.
For Example we can incorporate Flash into your header.
Too often, we create a professional user-friendly design for clients who then populate their site with text they just “knocked off.” Your words are the foundation upon which your business is built. Your products, your website and your marketing strategy all depend on your words. Flash doesn’t make a sale. Your words do.

You still need some graphics on your web site to help keep the readers attention and maintain the interest of the reader.

One item about Flash you should keep in mind:  
FLASH IS EXPENSIVE TO CREATE!

Although multimedia has its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad design more likely, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value.

About 99% of the time, the presence of Flash on a website constitutes a usability disease. Although there are rare occurrences of good Flash design (it even adds value on occasion), the use of Flash typically lowers usability. In most cases, we would be better off if these multimedia objects were removed.

Flash tends to degrade websites for three reasons: it encourages design abuse, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction principles, and it distracts attention from the site's core value.

Splash pages were an early sin of abusive Web design. Luckily, almost all professional websites have removed this usability barrier. However, we're now seeing the rise of Flash intros that have the same obnoxious effect: They delay users' ability to get what they came for. On the upside, most Flash intros feature a "skip intro" button. However, their very existence encourages design abuse in several ways. Flash encourages gratuitous animation: Since we can make things move, why not make things move? Animation clearly has its place in online communication. One of the Web's most powerful features is that it lets users control their own destiny. Users go where they want, when they want. This quality is what makes the Web so usable, despite its many usability problems. Unfortunately, many Flash designers decrease the granularity of user control and revert to presentation styles that resemble television rather than interactive media. Websites that force users to sit through sequences with nothing to do will be boring and pacifying, regardless of how cool they look.

Perhaps the worst problem with Flash is that its use consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing the website's core value by:

• Frequently updating content (Flash content tends to be created once and then left alone).
• Providing informative content that answers users' key questions at all depth levels
  (Flash content is typically superficial).
• Identifying better ways to support customers by task analyzing their real problems
  (Flash is typically created by outside agents who don't understand the business).

If Flash was cheap to produce and if all content creators could make a Flash object as easily as they write a standard Web page, then perhaps many of these problems would be alleviated. For now, they remain serious issues. I thus recommend that Business Owners interested in enhancing usability and their site's overall business presence use Flash sparingly.

Final Note: Most Recently Flash has become a nice intermix for video and photo viewing  as seen on many more web sites today. But Remember it does use up more memory in your computer and does take longer to load, but not really much longer than a standard photo that has not been stripped down.