While I would think that by now, I wouldn't have the publish an article on this subject, but I'm still seeing sites that are a) built in flash and / or b) have image-heavy design, which is super irritating. Not to point fingers, but I've found that the most these sites tend to be for design agencies (showing off their skills) and for some reason bars and restaurants. There are millions of reasons why sites built in flash or image heavy are bad, here are my top 7.

Top 7 Reasons to build a text-based site

1.  20% of the users disable Flash plug-ins, these movies takes forever to download (and so does the plug-in that plays it).
2. Users are more-and-more moving towards mobile devices to visit website (the iPhone cannot read flash - and never will)
3. Many large corporations block installing flash on browsers. 
4. Journalists and members of the trade cannot easily copy information about your business if it's image-based or in flash, and they don't have the time and patience to retype the info (and will likely move onto the next company). 
5.  Design and implementation costs are far higher for flash and images than for a simple, clean site.
6.  Search engines cannot read graphics and you will not be recognized by them.
7. Sites built in flash often confuse the user as the navigation is typically unintuitive.

I'm not saying you can't incorporate cool design and animation into your site, just be careful that the content and usability doesn't get lost.

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