Ensuring An Effective Transition From Flash To HTML5 With 7 Essential Checklists

Ensuring An Effective Transition From Flash To HTML5 With 7 Essential Checklists
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Summary: Following the announcement that Flash will die by 2020, many organizations have started seeing reasons to move their Flash-based eLearning content to HTML5. However, the conversion of Flash content to HTML5 can take two different approaches.

An Effective Transition From Flash To HTML5

In case you're having a huge number of courses with inadequate skills, you should outsource for an effective transition from Flash to HTML5. There are numerous benefits attached to outsourcing your projects to the right vendor. However, for you to enjoy them, you need to put some factors into consideration. In this article, we'll be exploring 7 checklists that can guide you toward ensuring an effective transition from Flash to HTML5.

1. Audit Your Flash Courses

Before outsourcing your project to an eLearning vendor, you must consider auditing your Flash courses. This is in order to ensure that you're not leaving out any of your vital Flash courses unconverted. One way of doing this is by bringing together all your online training resources, including your courses, videos, eLearning animations, and many more. You can identify your Flash courses by selecting the files with the extension .swf or .flv. Having identified your Flash courses, what's next is selecting and analyzing the ones that are essential for the conversion process. Segregate them into different categories, including the ones that need converting into bite-sized, the ones that need rebranding and updating, and the ones that require direct conversion. After segregation, all you need to do is prioritize them according to your needs.

2. Put The Source Files In Place

For an effective transition from Flash to HTML5, it's also essential that you put all the resources in place. You can do that by gathering them together in a single file location. By doing so, it'll be easier for you to transfer the files to the eLearning vendor without missing out on any of them. In case you don't have a particular source file, you can always use the record and redesign strategy. However, there must be media elements available to aid the process. Also, ensure that you arrange other media elements according to their formats.

3. Opt For The Right Authoring Tools

It's vital to opt for the right authoring tool if you want to ensure an effective transition from Flash to HTML5. First, you need to identify your needs, then make a thorough research before selecting an authoring tool for your conversion process. Are you interested in keeping most of the interactivities of your Flash courses while converting? Or are you interested in having your responsive HTML5 courses? You can consider opting for an authoring tool that can cater to all these needs.

4. Check For Any Updates Before Converting

In most cases, Flash courses might require you to redesign the interactivities using an HTML5-based authoring tool. Apart from that, they might require you to rebuild the content or use an entirely different design and instructional strategy. So, to ensure an effective transition from Flash to HTML5, you need to check for necessary updates before proceeding to the conversion process.

5. Make The Course Design Responsive

Flash courses are mostly not compatible with most devices, especially those with iOS versions. This is a serious issue because a large percentage of today's global workforce are millennials. Employees prefer to access training material on the go, at their convenience at any time and place. As such, creating different courses for different devices might be a time-consuming process and costly. To have an effective transition from Flash to HTML5, you must opt for responsive online training. By doing so, you will be able to design courses that are compatible with all devices, including Android smartphones, iPhones, tablets, and iPads. Responsive eLearning is a design approach that focuses on responsive web design.

6. Make The Courses Learner-Friendly

For you to make your courses learner-friendly, you must ensure a thorough check on the branding. Ensure that you utilize the right fonts and that the assessments show the right score achieved by learners. Also, ensure that you enable the course completion certificates to display the date of completion, as well as the course name. Apart from that, you must ensure that the placement of your navigation buttons is consistent throughout the pages.

7. Ensure Reviewing And Testing

You must make necessary reviews and testing on the courses before you publish them. It doesn't matter whether you outsourced or designed them in-house. In case you're outsourcing, you must go for the right vendor that has a properly defined quality-check process in place. In case of in-house development, you can consider designing a checklist to guide you while monitoring the quality of the courses upon conversion. Furthermore, ensure thorough testing on the courses after you upload the converted courses to your LMS. You should also test the courses on different devices to check for their responsiveness.

Are you still wondering whether to convert your Flash-based courses to HTML5? Well, 2020 is upon us already, and this is the best time for you to convert them. The conversion process is not difficult if you can follow the above-listed checklists. They'll guide you toward achieving an effective transition from Flash to HTML5.

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