I'm working on a project and I really need your valuable input!
At this point in time HTML5 is being used mainly for mobile learning courses that will be accessed from mobile devices (especially for devices that are not Flash compatible).
I'm looking for scenarios or situations where people have published e-learning content to HTML5 specifically for desktop viewing, and not mainly for mobile delivery.
If you have experienced this, I would love to hear from you and find out why chose to (or had to) publish to HTML5 for desktop...
We have made a few things that might fall into this category.
For one client we created a course engine that loads content from external XML and synchronizes it with video from a media server. They planned for 90% of their learners to be on a desktop but as part of their marketing strategy they are giving iPads to some users. So it had to work on iPads too.
For Google we have created a quiz development tool. Google's course developers build quizzes in our tool and embed the published code into their internal LCMS. Both the tool and it's output are HTML5. From our experience almost all of Google's e-Learning content is HTML5.
Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about either of these projects.
I could see this as a possible approach if you wanted the same experience for all users, regardless of delivery device. Limiting to HTML5 would make it so that everyone saw the exact same thing, and it would limit your internal testing before go-live to one type of file. I wouldn't recommend it because the SWF is fantastic...but I could see it happening as a way to limit the timeline for review purposes.
@James - thank you very much for your timely response. Seems like you have some good experience in this area... I may contact you via PM if I have any additional questions for you. Was there a reason the client wanted to go the .xml way instead of Flash? Was it due to the small iPad user population? Also... not surprised that Google's training is all HTML5!! Obviously they will be some leaders of the pack in that area!! Thanks again!
@Nick - Thanks for chiming in with your input!! Really appreciate it!! From what my research into HTML5 tells me so far, at this point in time, unfortunately, using HTML5 does not mean that everyone sees the exact same thing and does not limit the need to test to only type of file... This is because HTML5 is rendered and displayed differently by each browser, and on top of that, every device (desktop, smartphone or tablet) uses different browsers (and browser versions). This means HTML5 code can actually look and behave differently across every different browser, and can also look and function differently from a desktop to a mobile device.
On top of that, there are a lot of design considerations that make designing one output for both desktop and mobile very challenging. What all of that means is that when publishing for HTML5 output you need to a) optimize for certain devices and browsers, and b) do a lot of thorough cross-browser and cross-device testing to make sure everything looks and functions as desired... This will probably continue to be the case until it is a fully mature and has 100% parity across all devices and browsers.
In any case - this is what I've found through my HTML5 research so far!! I hope it's accurate but if anyone has any information otherwise or anything to add I would be so happy to hear it! Thanks again for the input Nick!
I have not needed this myself but I've seen posts from people in which they want a way to publish a no-Flash version because of some company policy that prohibits Flash. So this might be a case for having an html5 only version used via desktop.
Although one issue I see with this is a lot of companies still run on older versions of IE which do not support html5.
@Nicole, I agree. TONS of browser testing needed. I simply meant it eliminates the SWF from ALSO needing browser testing. It just removes one additional variable from the mix.
I have built for html5 for a couple of companies, but usually because of an internal policy of no flash content. Thankfully, these companies also had updated software otherwise it would have been a nightmare! I really liked the html5 build, because there is a lot less testing involved (still need to do all browsers on all devices, but often limited to what is on the corporate network) and it just seems to work better.
7 Replies
We have made a few things that might fall into this category.
For one client we created a course engine that loads content from external XML and synchronizes it with video from a media server. They planned for 90% of their learners to be on a desktop but as part of their marketing strategy they are giving iPads to some users. So it had to work on iPads too.
For Google we have created a quiz development tool. Google's course developers build quizzes in our tool and embed the published code into their internal LCMS. Both the tool and it's output are HTML5. From our experience almost all of Google's e-Learning content is HTML5.
Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about either of these projects.
I could see this as a possible approach if you wanted the same experience for all users, regardless of delivery device. Limiting to HTML5 would make it so that everyone saw the exact same thing, and it would limit your internal testing before go-live to one type of file. I wouldn't recommend it because the SWF is fantastic...but I could see it happening as a way to limit the timeline for review purposes.
@James - thank you very much for your timely response. Seems like you have some good experience in this area... I may contact you via PM if I have any additional questions for you. Was there a reason the client wanted to go the .xml way instead of Flash? Was it due to the small iPad user population? Also... not surprised that Google's training is all HTML5!! Obviously they will be some leaders of the pack in that area!! Thanks again!
@Nick - Thanks for chiming in with your input!! Really appreciate it!! From what my research into HTML5 tells me so far, at this point in time, unfortunately, using HTML5 does not mean that everyone sees the exact same thing and does not limit the need to test to only type of file... This is because HTML5 is rendered and displayed differently by each browser, and on top of that, every device (desktop, smartphone or tablet) uses different browsers (and browser versions). This means HTML5 code can actually look and behave differently across every different browser, and can also look and function differently from a desktop to a mobile device.
On top of that, there are a lot of design considerations that make designing one output for both desktop and mobile very challenging. What all of that means is that when publishing for HTML5 output you need to a) optimize for certain devices and browsers, and b) do a lot of thorough cross-browser and cross-device testing to make sure everything looks and functions as desired... This will probably continue to be the case until it is a fully mature and has 100% parity across all devices and browsers.
In any case - this is what I've found through my HTML5 research so far!! I hope it's accurate but if anyone has any information otherwise or anything to add I would be so happy to hear it! Thanks again for the input Nick!
I have not needed this myself but I've seen posts from people in which they want a way to publish a no-Flash version because of some company policy that prohibits Flash. So this might be a case for having an html5 only version used via desktop.
Although one issue I see with this is a lot of companies still run on older versions of IE which do not support html5.
@Nicole, I agree. TONS of browser testing needed. I simply meant it eliminates the SWF from ALSO needing browser testing. It just removes one additional variable from the mix.
I have built for html5 for a couple of companies, but usually because of an internal policy of no flash content. Thankfully, these companies also had updated software otherwise it would have been a nightmare! I really liked the html5 build, because there is a lot less testing involved (still need to do all browsers on all devices, but often limited to what is on the corporate network) and it just seems to work better.
My company is at the point where they are trying to eliminate flash sooner, than later. Any other findings you all have had over the past year?
Once the company makes the switch, our content will not be able to play. We are trying to ahead of the change.
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