3 Reasons why HTML5 is changing the development landscape 13/01/2012 3:14 pm
Why do we believe HTML5 is sparking a new generation of mobile and web development?
Although the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is set to officially complete the HTML5 standard in 2016, Apple’s initial support of HTML5 features helped accelerate its adoption by a host of players and, in the process, promises to change the development landscape irrevocably.
According to a recent article in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal, 34% of the 100 most popular websites used HTML5 in the quarter ending this September and resume searches by hiring managers looking for HTML5 know-how more than doubled between the first quarter and the third quarter.
Why all the excitement? Below are three reasons.
1. Mobile everything - According to a recent report by ABI Research, the number of mobile devices that run HTML5 will increase from 109 million in 2010 to more than 2.1 billion by 2016. It is this potential that may have driven Facebook to acquire HTML5 app distribution platform company Strobe. The company debuted its platform to help developers build HTML5-based Web applications for desktops, smart phones and tablets only a few weeks back.
Like Facebook, Adobe, the makers of the popular Flash video plug-in, sees tremendous potential for HTML5. For this reason, it recently acquired Nitobe Software, which created PhoneGap, a popular open source platform to create cross-platform mobile applications with HTML5 and JavaScript.
HTML5 is becoming an integral part of the mobile ecosystem. The research firm Strategic Analytics published a report predicting that all smartphones would include HTML5 by 2013. The firm also expects feature phones (not just smart phones) to include the technology.
2. Customer Engagement above all else – Through HTML5 technologies, companies can create websites that behave more like an app or apps that run on a website's technology. It just shows a trend for technological convergence where the driving factor is the user's experience. A recent set of articles (part 1, part 2) from eZ System's CEO Gabriele Viebach and eZ System's Founder Aleksander Farstad were spot on in describing the challenges in moving from Web Content Management into the broader field of Customer Experience Management.
Focusing on the ‘customer first’ principle and ensuring that their interactions are engaging requires development and design teams composed of members who understand this important priority. HTML5 gives web developers tools that help achieve this vision.
At the LeWeb 2011 conference, Chairman and CEO of Forrester Research, George Colony, made the controversial claim that the web is dead and will be replaced by an app economy. Though we and other experts feel this is going a bit far, the truth is that users are demanding more from their digital experiences and HTML5 helps elevate user experiences without the need for third party software.
3. From web development to digital experience development - In the present context, web development needs to be relearned, and as industry veterans we've been busy doing it. Developers and designers need to develop new user experiences without sacrificing large portions of their user base that haven’t upgrade their browser technologies and would be left behind. Developers need to be up to speed on strategies such as progressive enhancement or graceful degradation while embracing a bolder approach to HTML5 adoption even before the final standard is set in stone as is clearly portrayed in the voices of author/speaker Andy Clarke (writer of the great book Hardboiled Web Design) or Paul Irish with his work on the Modernizr. Ethan Marcotte coined the term “responsive Web design” to describe precisely this new world. This new design philosophy focuses on the user experience across this myriad of new devices.
More than anything, the rise of HTML5 is more a response to the new realities of the web where mobile, social and cloud computing trends are coming together to bring new options to developers and their clients. The reality is that this is impacting the way developers and designers look at how to solve client problems. For us here at Aplyca it has helped us evolve and develop new ways to surprise ourselves and our clients.
