Ctrl Alt - A blog about user experience from Ben Turner

Is it really a battle between Flash vs. HTML5?

Should we worry about using open standards - does it matter? There are obvious arguments against using Flash but then there are against using the more advanced features of HTML5 too.

So what's so good about Flash, why can't people let go of it? Well for starters there's a lot of it out there and, as web users, we want to see, use and interact with all that lovely content. After all this is content that has taken uncountable amounts of man-hours to put together.

As a web designer or web developer Flash is easy entry and great for getting a good quality visual finish. Not to mention it is the baseline for video content - making up something like a quarter of all video content on the web - but I don't want to focus too much on video here because until the likes of Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari choose a single HTML5 file format it's not really going anywhere quickly.

Are Flash's days numbered?

Whatever the eventual answer to that question that time isn't now and to the same point it's also not quite HTML5's moment either. There are just too many old devises that can't support it. And until we categorically move away from browsers that don't support CSS3 we won't have that tipping point.

The good news is that, as consumers we have an ever growing array of gadgets and devises that we can use to consume web content. As user experience designers and as front end developers though this really makes our jobs that much tougher. In order to meet the needs of modern web users we need to create content that can be digested by all these devises.

It is this element of the open standards approach that I believe really stands HMTL 5 in good stead. By creating websites where content (HTML), visuals (CSS) and interactivity (JavaScript) are all split into the segmented specialties it allows for much greater portability. It also allows those technologies to grow up quicker and stronger because, as leaders of where the web is going, we all have our specialist knowledge and where we see a gap we can make sure it is filled. With Flash we'd need for a single organisation to identify the gap and wait for there to be enough money in it to justify filling it.

Let's not forget this isn't really Flash vs. HTML5.

As much as there are some definite battles afoot between the two technologies it's not really about Flash and HTML5. It’s about users, devises and viewing engaging content.

If users can do what they set out to they won’t care on what platform the content was built. What they do care about is getting a job done. If Steve Jobs and friends aren’t going to support Flash then so be it for now. If the new Blackberry and other Android tablet devices outsell the iPad by pushing Flash then we’ll see if Apple changes their approach.

The other end of the spectrum to the current problem is the lag for users to adopt devises that will work with HTML5. For example lots of big businesses still seem to use ie6 as their default browser. It doesn't mean that those users want to be left out of getting access to good content. It normally means they are just ‘stuck’ with ie6 still making up something like 10% of browser usage it seems Microsoft’s own ie6 countdown movement doesn’t seem to be working as swiftly as most of us would like.

So where does this leave us?

Unfortunately if you, or the company you are working for, create something in Flash or HTML5 alone you are going to be cutting out a large audience either way. If I had to choose to do it just one way over the other though, it would have to be HTML5. There is just much more scope to gracefully degrade the work and that ability just doesn't exist with Flash - which is all or nothing.

There are obviously motives for the browser suppliers to push their own dubious agendas but hopefully it will be the users that have final say. If we as users can get rid of browsers that don't support CSS3 and HTML5 then we'll have a real chance of moving to an open platform across the whole web. Until that happens though it's all just a dream of the future.