I've been finding lately that, I'm having less and less need for actionscript and flash based sites. Why is this you might ask? Well, since learning ajax, javascript and of course the jQuery library, I find that i'm able to get the same results as I would with tweens and transitions but with less of the headaches. Have we come so far that actionscript is becoming an obsolete language? Maybe, maybe not. To my knowledge, you still have create 3D movements (like papervision) with jQuery or other javascript libraries. Maybe I'm wrong and would love to find out that I am.
The other reason I see less need for Actionscript is that it is still miles behind in its ability to be tracked probably. Yes Google Analytics has come out with some great components to add to your flash site in order to track users and user interactions, but the headaches that come with setting it up without destroying the rest of your code is sometimes not worth the effort. I was doing this the other day on a recent project. The client has requested we build them a flash based site, unfortunately we didn't ask them if they wanted to be able to track the information on user interactions with this site. Once the site had been launched that was the first thing they asked for. But because we had finished testing and building the site, the implementation of each clicked section became more than we could handle for the given timeline so I had to leave it as a general overview version.
My current portfolio is flash based and I sat and wondered this over the past weekend, why I was keeping it that way? I haven't given myself a good reason and will probably begin a redesign of it soon. I think the extent of which flash is being used is diminishing much like traditional media budgets. But we as designers have to be careful because there are still millions of users out there that still are using IE6 (which I don't endorse what so ever) and also don't have javascript enabled. These can definitely cause a whole new set of headaches to watch out for. I still think unless something amazing happens within the next few years in the world of actionscript that we will see it be reduced down to display banners and landing page sites that only have a single page use for entertainment value only. The strength and unlimited possibilities that Ajax and jQuery present out weigh the need to fully utilize Actionscript any more.
