Thursday, 3 October 2013

The impact of HTML5 on individuals:

Semantics and multimedia are the two main reasons why accessibility is easier with HTML5. Screen readers are able to access content easier with the new semantic tags like <nav>, <header>, <footer>, <section>, <aside>, etc. This will allow screen readers to provide a better experience for the visually impaired by examining the HTML document better.

As an example, consider a webpage designed by an author only interested in the average citizen using a standard web browser. If the designer used HTML5, the same webpage can be used by a mobile phone browser. Because HTML emphasises the meaning of the information the page holds rather than just the page’s presentation, the same page can be easily converted to small text, with heading which are in a bold font (Hickson, and Hyatt, 2011).
But it is more than just differences in font styles. Again, visually impaired users can use the same page with technology based around speech synthesis. Then the text can be read to the user instead of displaying it. Also the heading text can be voiced in a slower voice or different volume. Navigation is also simplified for these users as "jump to previous heading" or "jump to next heading" commands are understood by the browsers by understanding the outline of the document (Hickson, and Hyatt, 2011).
Relative content can be easily provided through the use of this information. Page index can be effectively generated by search engines, or subsection content can be provided from the results. Also table of content can be generated as tools will understand the headings of documents.
Third party media player like Flash Players and are a thing of the past,  with the new audio and video.  HTML5 tags video and audio and  will play correctly as most browsers support them (Behr, Jung, Keil, Drevensek, Zoellner, Eschler, and Fellner, 2010).
The ability to browse while you are offline is now enabled by HTML5. Through its local storage feature, which is not the same as cookies, but more like a client-side database which will persist even after the browser has closed or cookies deleted (Casario, Elst, Brown, Wormser, and Hanquez, 2011).
Users are now allowed to interact with content instead of just looking at results.  The <canvas> tag or better known as the HTML5 drawing tag,  allows users to experience a richer experience than previous platforms like Flash. HTML5 API enables dynamic web content like (Boulos, Warren, Gong, and Yue, 2010):

·         Offline storage database

·         Drag and Drop (DnD)

·         Document editing

·         Timed media playback

·         Browser history management

·         Games

Modern web-browsers like Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and IE9 all support HTML5. Even old browser like IE6 can support the new HTML5 tags by using JavaScript “shim”, browsers’ shortcomings are corrected by the script.
Mobile devices aren’t just a fade, more and more users will be using their smart phones to browse the website. Adobe isn’t building mobile flash applications anymore; and because most mobile web browsers have fully adopted HTML5; HTML5 is mobile ready and will give you both mobile web and normal browser web ability in one. Tags that optimise the mobile experience include (Bidelman, 2011):

·         Viewport: standard widths and viewpoint zoom settings.

·         Full screen browsing: Allows Apple and Windows mobile to display in full screen mode

·         Home Screen Icons: Allows favourites to be added to the home screen of Android and IOS mobile devices.

 References
Bidelman, E, (2011). "Mobifying" Your HTML5 Site. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/mobile/mobifying/. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
Behr, J., Jung, Y., Keil, J., Drevensek, T., Zoellner, M., Eschler, P., & Fellner, D. (2010, July). A scalable architecture for the HTML5/X3D integration model X3DOM. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Web 3D Technology (pp. 185-194). ACM.
Boulos, M., Warren, J., Gong, J., & Yue, P. (2010). Web GIS in practice VIII: HTML5 and the canvas element for interactive online mapping. International journal of health geographics, 9(1), 14.

Casario, M., Elst, P., Brown, C., Wormser, N., & Hanquez, C. (2011). HTML5 Local Storage. In HTML5 Solutions: Essential Techniques for HTML5 Developers (pp. 281-303). Apress.
 
Hickson, I., & Hyatt, D. (2011). HTML5: A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML. W3C Working Draft edition.
 
Mueller ,G, (2012). Should my website be developed using HTML5. http://www.1stwebdesigns.com/blog/web-design/should-my-website-be-developed-using-html5. Retrieved 29 September 2013.

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