Every changing? We've been complaining about Flash on sites like these for years. We wanted a way to view their menus on our phones. We wanted to be able to see their hours without waiting for a 10 megabyte flash object to load. We wanted to make a reservation online, etc.
I'm not sure why these Flash interfaces exist. More than likely someone who's good at running a restaurant isn't going to be know a lot of technology and will get roped into the most expensive flash-based design they can afford. Items like usability, mobile friendliness, etc never come up because the owner doesn't know or care about it and the designers are too invested in Flash to try anything else.
Is this hurting their business? I'm not sure. I never go to restaurant sites. I visit yelp instead. I only do takeout from places that have good systems in place. Its a competitive advantage now to take online reserverations and have a menu I can view on my phone. Considering something like 80% of all new restaurants go out of business after their first year, it might make sense for these owners to stop being so pigheaded about technology and ask themselves if that slow non-mobile $20,000 Flash site is really serving their customers.
This is the same battle we had with restaurants being cash only 15 or so years ago. The ones that embraced credit cards seemed to have flourished and the cash-only place is either gone or has degenerated into a dive. I think the lower tech your industry is, the most room there is for disruption. These blue-collar places really need to consider the big picture here.
> I never go to restaurant sites. I visit yelp instead.
I've tried and I let them know when I do.
When I want the experience, I'll go to the web site. When I just want to know if they have food that fits within my dietary constraints, I'd like to find out easily. That's not necessarily available via yelp (or whatever is awesome this week).
It is hard to find the restaurant sites as the flash only ones often have no content that is indexed by google, like a blank one I visited yesterday to see if it was open.
If they existed in the first place it was probably because back when the precedence was set, Flash was on the verge of being the next big thing. Resizing images, audio, video, chat, installed on 98% of browsers, etc. It was only getting better and the thought was that everyone needed a website or they'd be out of business. That didn't pan out for the restaurant business, whose model is based more on reputation than menu updates. A model dutifully exploited by the likes of Yelp.
If Flash sites still exist today it's either because of economic apathy (they don't make any money from it) or they're targeting a specific user. Yes, some things look crappy on purpose and some people actual derive value from that.
I cannot speak from the perspective of a professional photographer, but I'm assuming that they do not derive the majority of their income based on targeting devices or platforms and those people affording them advice in that particular market segment aren't on the same level as say someone who makes a living in providing technology services to companies that do.
I'm not sure why these Flash interfaces exist. More than likely someone who's good at running a restaurant isn't going to be know a lot of technology and will get roped into the most expensive flash-based design they can afford. Items like usability, mobile friendliness, etc never come up because the owner doesn't know or care about it and the designers are too invested in Flash to try anything else.
Is this hurting their business? I'm not sure. I never go to restaurant sites. I visit yelp instead. I only do takeout from places that have good systems in place. Its a competitive advantage now to take online reserverations and have a menu I can view on my phone. Considering something like 80% of all new restaurants go out of business after their first year, it might make sense for these owners to stop being so pigheaded about technology and ask themselves if that slow non-mobile $20,000 Flash site is really serving their customers.
This is the same battle we had with restaurants being cash only 15 or so years ago. The ones that embraced credit cards seemed to have flourished and the cash-only place is either gone or has degenerated into a dive. I think the lower tech your industry is, the most room there is for disruption. These blue-collar places really need to consider the big picture here.