Dancing leprechauns touting a 1.5% mortgage refi. Blinking banners adds claiming you have won a new iPad. Unfortunately, these images come to mind when I think of flash on today’s web sites. Flash played a significant role in the development of the modern web site, however, user needs and expectations have changed.

Here are four reasons your next site (and current site) shouldn’t have flash.

1. FLASH IS SLOW TO LOAD AND CAN BE A DRAIN ON YOUR COMPUTER'S MEMORY. There are many reason why your flash site isn’t breaking any speed records, ranging from massive files handling complex animations to just poorly written code. But regardless of the reason, the impact for end users is the same… waiting. On average, a user spends less than one minute on your site. If you have only 60 seconds to capture a user's attention, you don’t want to waist half of that time waiting for flash to load.

2. SEARCH ENGINES (LIKE GOOGLE) CAN'T INDEX CONTENT INSIDE FLASH. Rarely do users know the URL of the site they are looking for. We just “Google it” (sorry Bing users). If you have important web content (like your ministry’s name, purpose, service times etc.) all fancied up in a cool flash presentation, it is likely that not everyone looking for you can find you.

3. iOS DEVICES (iPHONE, iPAD, iPOD TOUCH) CAN'T LOAD FLASH. As the mobile/tablet market continues to explode, more and more people are using these devices as replacements to their traditional desktops/laptops. While iOS devices aren’t the only option available, they do own the market (almost exclusively, in some cases). If your site has any flash, you can bet iOS users aren’t spending much time there.

4. ADOBE (THE MAKERS OF FLASH) IS DROPPING FUTURE DEVELOPMENT FOR MOBILE DEVICES. While Abode says they will continue to develop flash for the pc, the mobile market will be growing up without flash. This is important, as this market stands to experience its greatest growth over the next decade.

New technologies like HTML5 make it possible to have beautiful, functional sites without the concessions flash brings. In a time when user expectations are high and attentions are stretched thin, removing any hindrances on your website can mean more connection.