Luckily, almost all professional websites have removed this usability barrier. However, their very existence encourages design abuse in several ways. Animation clearly has its place in online communication. However, as my 1995 guidelines discuss , that place is limited. Second, 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. Third, many Flash designers introduce their own nonstandard GUI controls . However, the specification of a new GUI widget is a major human-factors exercise.