Don't ask us for HTML5
As soon as you read a headline phrased like the one heading this article, you will immediately start to think of a response. For the vast majority of people, that response will be either "Why not?" or "What are you talking about?”.
If your response was the latter, then I commend you on admitting that you don’t know what I’m talking about. Owning up to a lack of knowledge is usually the smart thing to do. However, if your response was “Why not?”, then I’m afraid you’ve committed a grave mistake.
You undoubtedly know that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” – this is as true in web design and development as it is everywhere else. The problem is that there is a third response to this title – the one that people who actually understand what HTML 5 is would give – “Why would I?”. Answering “Why not?” immediately shows that whilst you think that you know what you are talking about, you most likely don’t.
We often get requests for the websites we build to be built to various standards. Most of the time however, we don’t get a legitimate reason for the request. This is usually because the client doesn’t actually understand what they’re asking for.
By this point, you most likely think that I’m insulting you. Nothing could be further from the truth. When everything is said and done, it isn’t your job to know what HTML5 is (or any other standard for that matter) – that’s part of our field of expertise. Because of this, if we get asked for an HTML5 website – we’ll ask why it’s important to you. By discussing your reasoning, we can all come to a greater understanding of what you want to achieve and why. If after that, we find that there is a reason for using a specific technology, then we’ll happily do it.
We’re always happy to answer any questions you might have about web technologies; just remember that the technology isn’t important – what matters is what you actually want to achieve.
Oh, and just for record, all of our recent work uses HTML5.