You may have read earlier on our blog about the ruthless anonymous emailer who insulted us for not using HTML 5 on ALL of our PAST sites! Easier said then done! Well, HTML 5 has not been a full-proof viable option before but seems like it may be working its way towards that direction. That said, we are in the process of creating a strategy for resolving our past, current and future web development options and here is the latest in our back and forth on the subject.

John (our programmer) and I have been developing a strategy this past week on how to handle the iPad and iPhone question of ‘no Flash’. We actually just returned this minute from a meeting today with two Flash strategy people at Adobe and they concur with the options we are pursuing. Below are the directions we can go. If any of this seems too confusing to you, please call me and we can discuss at depth the pro’s and cons. I will outline the main issues as they apply to you for your new site development.

As you may know, Flash is a self contained way of developed cross browser compatible sites and applications with rich interaction. In opposition, HTML with javascript has developed in the last few years to where it can do some of the same transitions without Flash. You’ve probably heard some hype about how Steve Jobs will not allow Flash on the iOS (iPhone and iPad) because he believes if performs inferiorly. He is correct in some cases as we have tested some of the Flash sites we’ve developed on Android OS which does allow Flash – but the performance of existing sites is not optimized for a mobile experience. This basically means every site we do (or have done) needs to be optimized and in most cases built (twice!) for a mobile or tabloid (pad) experience, depending on the design.

Flash on the iPhone does not work UNLESS you download a self contained application (a la a Flash Air file wrapped and distributed via the app store or). Many of our clients have sites that were built in Flash, pre iPad and don’t have budgets to rebuild their sites now in HTML with jQuery (javascript). As a test, this past week we created an intro slideshow similar to the Flash one in HTML to test the performance on the iPhone and iPad. We were able to make it reasonably acceptable. The mobile test site displays a slideshow with a quick cross fade to the next photo(s), logo and contact details with a phone number that links to an active call if tapped. This solution will be our stop gap work-around for clients wanting something useful to display on a mobile device rather than a blank screen. To be clear, this solution is how we will handle sites previously built in Flash that need to display something on mobile devices that do no have Flash installed or cannot display flash and where the clients to no have a budget to rebuild an entire mobile site. This solution is not ideal but it allows access to viewers trying to access a Flash site.

For any new site development, we’re evaluating three main criteria in choosing the path of development for the client. 1) If the interaction the client wants to achieve can be performed by HTML with jQuery (javascript) and 2) the performance is acceptable in the tests we do for the animation, plus 3) the design warrants the touch target sizes of a mobile phone or pad device and is 4.0 compatible, then we will build the site in HTML 5. If we cannot achieve that performance because it’s a little choppy, or the control over the user experience is buggy, then we might argue that Flash for the desktop is the target platform and we do the aforementioned work around for mobile devices. Likewise, depending on the purpose of the site, we might argue that there is no need for Flash because we can achieve the same interaction with jQuery or MooTools etc.

The biggest issue is the cost in development going the HTML route. What we gain in accessibility, we lose in the development time that it takes to debug an HTML site for 5-6 versions of browsers (Mac/PC). Many of our clients who hired us for simple portfolio sites love the way that Flash can control the experience across all browsers. HTML with CSS and jQuery sometimes shows the ‘seams’ which takes away from the experience we are trying to create. This is a subjective area for discussion but if you compare site by site, it is noticeable.
Granted, jQuery should help with some of these cross-platform issues, but it is not foolproof that it will be a cross platform solution and HTML, despite the hype, is not a solution at the time that I write this commentary.

We’ve also seen that different versions of jQuery transitions are better suited for desktop vs. mobile. With the introduction of jQuery Mobile, we’re hoping that some of these performance issues are reconciled. The biggest issue is that we potentially still end up doing two development efforts and frankly, some clients don’t have budgets for the costs needed to do the effort.

We are interested to hear more about the release of Adobe Wallaby this March which supposedly can take Flash and spit out a bit of HTML 5 but it remains to be seen how that will help or complicate things.

What’s extremely clear is that there is no black and white solution here. It’s a discussion over what you as a client want the experience to be. We must also not forget the design issues that come into play that make a simple mobile optimized web site not the same as an interactive portfolio site.

I hope this helps in helping define where your expectations should be and that the decision we make with you as clients or on the development decisions others are making… as it boils down to what is appropriate for the function of the site or app you are building, what the delivery method is and what you want the experience to be.

More to come on this subject in the near future!

Great ideas – some rooted in reality, some not!