Angry Web Designer

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The future of the next web with HTML5

The next best thing for web designers and developers is the advent of HTML5. The next revision of the HyperText Mark-up Language is going to change the way websites are made and how they interact with the user. Including advancements in the structure of the code, interactivity with the user and browser and accessibility possibilities for the disabled. It’s going to shoot the web into another dimension, not literally.

The next step is the “Semantic Web” which is a word that has been thrown around by some web futurists describing the next step, Web 3.0 if you want. Simply, the browser and computer will do more than just render the HTML it can read the page and scan it for information and indexing it locally to make use of functions that can make the browsing experience better than it has been. But its not only the ability of machine based interaction with websites that makes HTML5 better.

HTML5, whats different?

HTML5 will include a new structure for coding a page. HTML4 has become a bit backwards for designers because there are now common methods for creating a site which include the use of Division (<div>) tags as a wrapper and defining sidebars and so on. With HTML5 it has dedicated tags for Headers, Footers, Navigation and Sidebars meaning its 1 tag to do the job instead of 2 or more.

A List Apart has a fantastic post with examples of HTML 5 which I highly recommend to check it out if you are interested in exploring the structure.

As you can see from the example on the left, the structure has very clear and concise tags.

Initially I thought, and you may as well, that having these dedicated tags will limit what we can do and create a standard design. Yes and No. Some sites may have the same old wireframe look to them but it’s more flexible than what you may initially think. It really depends how “wild” your design ideas are and if you put those ideas into affect. If you can’t be arsed then of course it will blend in to the crowd but that’s the designers choice.

Better media playback, yay!

HTML5 also includes new media tags for video and audio which can be used in the site. Before you yell about why we never use background music on websites… its not used for that. Sharing multimedia like videos on websites can be a bit trickier than just plopping a link on a page. If you want it to display inline then you need to use a player, which will probably be Flash and made by the website that is streaming the media.

But what if your browser had an inbuilt default player that would get the link in the <video> tag and load it up. The days of Flash crashing browsers because its dumb and stupid will be long gone and the browser will be able to use a player that it knows will work. That’s what HTML5 will bring to the multimedia scene and will make the web an easier and less Flash-crash-y

Big plus, Accessibility.

Another plus for HTML5 will be the ease of accessibility for the disabled. For example, a screen reader for the blind can be given a command (maybe verbal) to list the navigation on a page. With HTML5 all it has to do is find the <nav> tag and read out the items. Simple! It will give the disabled a web that is more accessible to them than it ever has been before. Further examples could be a default style to a page for the motor impaired so that the clickable areas are large and content is easy to use and interact with. Just looking into the benefits of HTML5 for the disabled and impaired makes me feel that the future of the web with HTML5 is going to be mind blowing. The possibilities for plugins, addons and better user interaction will blow away anything HTML4 can do.

For more information on HTML and interesting articles see the links below:

• W3C Spec for HTML5
• A List Apart article on HTML5
• W3School HTML5 Reference

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