Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

iPad and the future of the Web

April 2, 2010

Design (Web)

Yes­ter­day, I read the fol­low­ing from a Google group:

Mac­World has an arti­cle, “Apple reveals its list of ‘iPad-ready’ Web­sites.”  The arti­cle brought some inter­est­ing ques­tions to mind:

• What do you all think about the dif­fi­culty of upgrad­ing web­sites that use Flash, to a more iPad friendly HTML5 + CSS + Javascript?
• Does upgrad­ing mean that the design of the web­site must change?
• Is there a design-process for tak­ing a UI devel­oped in Flash and con­vert­ing it into HTMl5 + CSS + Javascript?
• What does this mean for local (Florida) sales/marketing sites that are Flash heavy?  Should they move to become more iPad friendly HTML5 + CSS + Javascript?
• Will they be judged by poten­tial clients, as being infe­rior, if their site appears bro­ken on the iPad?

I think there is a much big­ger ques­tion than just mak­ing sure things work on the iPad. If you fol­low Web stan­dards think­ing, I think we are hit­ting a point when we need to con­sider how any­one is access­ing the Inter­net. Much more is hap­pen­ing through mobile and other devices such as the iPad. I am not so sure it is a good thing to move in the direc­tion of pro­pri­etary devel­op­ment. PPK addressed this on his blog in Feb­ru­ary with the obses­sion he has seen with the iPhone.

If we embrace the fun­da­men­tals behind Web stan­dards, then I think we owe it to our clients to edu­cate them to the broader issues. iPhone is still a small per­cent­age of the over­all mobile mar­ket and smart phone mar­ket. How wide­spread will iPad really be? I think it is unwise as a busi­ness deci­sion to not look at how to deliver the best expe­ri­ence over the wide-range of Inter­net devices that now exist and will only con­tinue to broaden in scope in the years ahead.

I think as Web pro­fes­sion­als, we need to be look­ing for inno­v­a­tive solu­tions like Video for Every­body. This HTML embeds HTML5 video into a site with fall backs to QT and then Flash. This solu­tion may not be per­fect yet but I like the idea of a solu­tion that offers options, if one video solu­tion does not work–fall back to another and so on.

I think that com­pa­nies that rely heav­ily on Flash need to rethink their strat­egy. Those solu­tions just don’t work well through­out the spec­trum of devices and do not really con­sider the con­text for mobile use. There have been plenty of posts since the announce­ment of the iPad that have reex­am­ined the short com­ings of Flash and have called for new solu­tions. (Zeld­man and Jeff Croft)

I think Web sites will be judged by whether they work across the spec­trum because there will always be users on dif­fer­ent plat­forms. To be hon­est, I am not a huge fan of brows­ing on my iPhone because  sites do not really work well with that plat­form unless the designer/developer has made it more iPhone friendly. But again, I think that same think­ing needs to con­sider other Smart phones and devices.

The real­ity is that devel­op­ing for the Web con­tin­ues to be com­plex and con­tin­ues to throw new prob­lems at Web pro­fes­sion­als that need new solu­tions. Let us embrace the chal­lenge. That is part of the thrill of being in this indus­try. There is always some new facet to explore and new prob­lem to solve. I hope that we respond by embrac­ing the chal­lenge and using our skills and tal­ents to meet these new chal­lenges with great solu­tions. Yes it means more devel­op­ment time and that we have to have a greater breadth of knowl­edge, but to move for­ward we need to embrace this real­ity and use the same pas­sion we have in the past to make great Web experiences.