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Before I start, I’d like to point out that this isn’t a post to argue if Flash is better than HTML5 or vise versa.  This post is simply my thoughts on the two technologies use on the web and how the web will transcend in their uses.

Want sound or video on your website?  You had to use Flash.

Flash, for a long time, has been the ‘go to‘ technology to offer rich media experiences on the web.  This includes a lot of stuff, from video to audio, to web cams and voice communications and more.  There has always been this black box of technology that developers have had to use to give these experiences to users.  So if Johnny the web designer wanted to play music on his website, he would either:

1. Know (or learn) how to develop in a Flash environment and do it himself.  Or,
2. Find an existing pluggable solution (in Flash) to offer that experience.

Flash is an excellent technology, and the people who develop Flash-based experiences are an innovative, creative, and talented community of people.

Flash, is a proprietary technology however, and has always required the use of the Flash player plugin so that users can experience the design and content on a webpage. Its pretty much middleware.  This means that when Jenny visits Johnny’s website, if she doesn’t have Flash player(or the proper version of it) she is presented with an error handler informing her that she needs it, and likely a link to go and download it.  This poses a couple of problems in UX design and seamless integration of rich media into applications we build on the web.

1. The message will frustrate the user.  As with all errors its disruptive to experience.
2. The need for Jenny to leave the page and download the plugin (and likely restart the browser) sucks.

Now, this would not be a problem if the browser came with the plugin pre-installed, and automatically updated.  Jenny simply would not have to worry about it.

Need to use Flash for audio and video on the web?  Not anymore.

HTML5 presents developers with a way to carry out rich media experiences without the end-user having to worry about the middleware.  For example, Johnny the web designer decides he wants to play music on his website he can either:

1. Go with Flash
   1. Know (or learn) how to develop in a Flash environment and do it himself. Or,
   2. Find an existing pluggable solution to give that experience.
2. Go with HTML5 – Johnny already knows HTML, because that’s what he learned first.

Now Johnny has a choice, and decides to use a solution like jPlayer (jPlayer.org) to implement the audio experience he desires. Now jPlayer will check the users browser and media type; falling back to Flash when certain requirements aren’t met such as older browsers or not-yet supported audio/video codecs.  Johnny wants to make sure his website is usable by as many people as possible.  The fallback is a product of the need for backwards compatibility.  Now when Jenny visits Johnny’s website, if she doesn’t have Flash player, and is using a modern browser, the experience isn’t interrupted by the need for Flash to present her with beautiful (or horrible) music.

HTML5 is built right into the browser.  There isn’t a looming need for extra software on top of the browser to offer the experience.  While HTML5 is certainly not as capable as Flash as I write this article, its only a matter of time for HTML5 to implement a lot more of the same capabilities, and whose to say what future versions of HTML will not be able to do?

Wanna learn about web design or development?  What is usually learned first?

While I’m going to make the assumption that, from years of my own observations, HTML is the first language people learn when they start building things for the web.  I don’t think that will change, HTML has a very easily followable learning curve.  With the abilities of HTML5 being presented to new generations of web designers and developers at the beginning of their education, the overall need for learning Flash technology decreases, making it less used over time to offer what used to be its major selling points.

Will HTML5 kill Flash?

No, why would we even want it to?  Given that, yes, in my opinion I think HTML5 is better for the web; I don’t think Flash should be thrown to the sharks.  We need multiple facets of technology to build with, to hack on, and be creative with – for the same reasons we have different programming languages, image editors, and other types of software to fit our preferences.  Should providing rich media on the web only be capable by Flash?  Hell no.

While HTML5 will progressively reduce the need to implement Flash technology into web applications built for the browser that doesn’t mean that Flash will be killed off.  It doesn’t mean people will stop developing for Adobe environments, but rather that the technology will migrate to more platform or industry specific arenas.  Even now some of the most high-profile video games out use Scaleform which is built with Flash – and its awesome.