Cars and Flash

DaBoss is looking for a new car, he's been looking at his costs in fuel and wants something more efficient for a runaround.

What this has led to is serious frustration with every car manufacturer's web site. See they use Flash, worse yet they seem to want to use Flash exclusively. Now don't get me wrong, Flash can be used well and meaningfully, sadly this isn't the case and it's treated as a way to beam an advert at you.

Music blares out at you, shapes swoop around the screen and finally The Car appears. Lovely but which of your range has a Petrol option, which have Bluetooth built-in or as an option, what's the fuel efficiency, the emission ratings?

Don't bother, oh sure the information is there but the navigation is woeful. Sometimes you can use the browser's back button sometimes it's all embedded in the Flash; sometimes you can search, but the option is tucked away somewhere; sometimes you can compare models, sometimes you can only compare between the options for that model. Most of the time I give up on the navigation and head straight for Download Brochure, because at least then I can turn to the techhy last page and see it all in black and white.

They're adverts that's it plain and simple, the deal is to hook you in to contact a dealer who can sell you the car. For anyone trying to get some information out them it's a tad frustrating, particularly the ones that force you to sit through their ads before you even get a menu option.