STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

SIG News
Usability SIG Web Site Tests Macromedia FlashPaper

By David Dick

The Usability SIG is always interested in new ways to put publish our newsletter on the Web. When an upgrade to Macromedia’s Contribute 2.0 included a new program called FlashPaper, we decided to give it a try.

The first hurdle with any new program is making it work, and this one was easy. All we had to do was to select the FlashPaper Printer from the print dialog to create the file.

The user interface is equally simple–a small control bar at the top of the page lets users zoom in and out, or jump to a specific page.

Our first impression is that this is an interesting program, adding document support to the popular Flash program, and well worth watching.

Benefits

• FlashPaper works with any printable document so Web site visitors can display them using the Flash viewer without having to own the original program.,
• FlashPaper documents open instantly within Web pages, providing a seamless way to display documents as an intrinsic part of a Web page.
• The initial display is very fast, with little program or document load time.
• A minimal user interface avoids screen clutter, while putting zoom, page and print controls in easy reach

Drawbacks

• Although Macromedia FlashPaper is a useful and practical method to share any printable document as an intrinsic part of a Web page, there are several limitations:
• The text in FlashPaper documents cannot be searched or selected by Web site visitors.
• FlashPaper does not support digital signatures, annotations and a variety of other features of enterprise document sharing technologies as PDF.
• FlashPaper is only available on Windows 2000 and XP, and soon to be available for MacOS.

So far, our use of FlashPaper is just an experiment. We are interested in hearing about other people’s experiences as well as usability or accessibility issues with this new format.

More information about Macromedia FlashPaper is available at www.macromedia.com/software/contribute/productinfo/flashpaper

If you are using Macromedia FlashPaper and would like to share your experiences, please contact me at david.dick@swift.com.