Splash is Dead

Splash pages are fun to build. Splash pages can be really creative and allow us to play with animation and sound. At Newfangled we spent lots of time and had tons of fun designing our splash page. If you want to check it out you can go to www.newfangled.com/oldsplash/machine.html.

Believe me, it was a hard decision to dump our splash page. If you come to our office, when you enter the receiving area the whole wall in front of you is covered with a large graphic of what used to be our splash page. We really liked it, and we've received many compliments about it, even some complaints that we got rid of it! So why did we drop the splash page?


The number one reason for getting rid of our splash page was that it turned away at least 25% of our site visitors, sometimes more. This percentage is has actually been researched and it turns out that at least 25% of site visitors will immediately leave a site as soon as they see a "loading" message for a Flash splash screen (even if there's a "skip intro" link). Our access logs confirmed this for us and this over all the other reasons caused us to get rid of it. The opportunity to "prove our creativity" was not worth the loss of such a high percentage of visitors.


Making this decision was a painful but actually a very healthy process. It is much too easy to rely on glitz over substance when it comes to marketing. This mistake is all too common on the web. We designers have to overcome many of our inclinations when it comes to web design, especially when it comes to our own sites. The web perhaps more than any other medium, requires less "impact" and more substance. This is hard for us as designers, not because we lack substance, but because we are so used to using our creativity to get attention for the substance of a message.   next >