In 2017, Adobe made a formal announcement stating that from 2020 the company would no longer support Flash. It’s a multimedia software which was extensively used to produce animations, desktop applications, and mobile games and applications, during the PC era. These Flash files could be viewed on browsers using a Flash player, and on the PC using some third-party applications. Following the announcement by Adobe, major browsers including Google and Microsoft followed suit and announced that they would disable the plug-in in their browsers by early next year, thus, bringing down the curtains on Flash.

So, what went wrong with Flash? Primarily, it was designed for the PC era and couldn’t withstand the advancements in new technology. Most designers therefore began to shift to alternate languages such as HTML, CSS and Javascript, which are more suited to the mobile environment. However, of these, it is HTML5 which has emerged as the language of choice to create responsive content which can be consumed on all platforms including PC, laptops, tablets and mobile devices.

HTML, a markup language used by the World Wide Web, stands for Hypertext Markup Language. The 5 which follows HTML signifies that it is the fifth generation of the original HTML standard which was first created in 1990 by the World Wide Web Consortium to define an Open Web Platform.

Given that Flash will become obsolete by next year, it becomes imperative for publishers to migrate their existing eLearning content from Flash to HTML5, which offers several benefits such as:

• Lower Development Costs: With HTML 5 you can use a single batch of code to convert your files from SWF to HTML5 files. This will help you to save on maintenance and other costs which you can put to use for other business costs.
• Higher Page Ranking: Your SEO efforts will come to naught if your webpage is not well-structured. With HTML5 you can design a website which is semantically accurate. HTML5 is easily readable by the search engines and offers benefits in terms of content mark-up and SEO.
• Offline Browsing: HTML5 supports local storage of web application code and content, through the offline application cache, thus providing an offline web experience for readers on the move and without an Internet connection.
• Create Device-Independent Content: We are living in the times of mobile when people access their content while on the move. With HTML 5, you can ensure that your eLearning content is mobile-ready and available to your readers anytime and anywhere, both online and offline. Besides, by converting your Flash content into HTML5, you can integrate and synchronize the learning process for different devices.
• Create Responsive Content: With HTML5, you can create responsive content where the content flows and adjusts to the size of the screen. The advantage is that you don’t have to scroll pages to access interactive learning content and also audio and video files do not take too much time to load. Besides, with responsive content, you can break up existing learning paths and also add interesting navigation paths for a more immersive and engaging experience.