Creating a Web Site with Flash CS3 Pro-Visual QickProject

Jody Severance
MKTG 470 – e-Commerce Book Review
October 23, 2008
UCCS – Professor Tom Gruen

Author David Morris wrote this beginner “How-To” type book (2007) as an alternative to a massive technical manual that shows every possible function of the Flash CS3 Pro software. The format of this book is a step-by-step project that visually guides users to create a striking and impressive web site using the Flash software from Adobe. The author provides an example case, a home-based florist business, and a companion web site from which to download the files to create the case web site. Morris uses simple and clear instructions with pictures of real dialog boxes, and then guides the user to apply these processes to create a working web site and learn many of the needed techniques in Flash-based web site design.

I selected this book because I am interested in web site design at the beginner level. I want to market myself to potential employers and my husband’s small business.

Morris has been a graphic artist and web site designer for fifteen years. Since he was a product manager for several Adobe products, Fireworks and FreeHand, which are used extensively in web site design, he is familiar with the broad power and depth of the Adobe products. Yet, Morris writes this book for a beginner user who is attracted to starting with a simple project that can produce a simple web site by following a step-by-step process.

The primary value of the book is the set of illustrations which directly relate to the case project. I realize that this type of book is aimed at my learning style: to first see, and then do. It is a tangible length of 148 pages, and it can result in launching an actual web site. Other strong aspects of the book include a companion web site with updated material and corrections to the text. Also, the author covers most of the seven C’s, which refer to the quality of the user interface with a web site. Morris illustrates how to incorporate: context, content, customization, communication, and connection.

On the downside, the case exercise requires users to have Flash CS3 Professional software, which I do not have on my home computer. In fact, in the introduction that I read before I bought the book, there is a quote that states, “…on the companion web site…you’ll find all of the files you need to complete the project in this book.” Additionally, only five of the seven C’s mentioned earlier were featured. There are no instructions on how to include “community” or activate a blog, nor “commerce” by including the instructions for safe commercial transactions. To be fair, these web site characteristics are very complex, and again, this is a beginner web site design book.

In the end, I do recommend this book as a beginner project to design a web site with Adobe Flash, and I do intend to use the book to create my own web site.