The Expected Benefits of HTML5 Adoption - Research Proposal Example

HTML5 Adoption: The Expected Benefits of HTML5 Adoption Introduction Background HTML5 is a mark up language that is increasingly being adopted for presenting and structuring the content of World Wide Web. As a core technology of the internet, HTML5 is considered to be the latest version of the previously launched HTML and XHTML languages. Although still under development, it is widely expected that the adoption of new platform will significantly help solve the limitations of its predecessors such as HTML as well as address the contemporary needs of web applications. This is particularly with regard to the fact that the primary objective of the developers of the new markup language have been to enhance the language by ensuring that it supports the latest multimedia platforms while at the same time keeping it easily readable by programmers (Castillo, 2012). During the previous decade, which began in the year 2000, browser based technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS among others have struggled to enable rich, robust, interactive and high performance features leaving engineers struggling to transfer applications to the web, due to its limitations (Gube, 2008). Although HTML5 technology has been around for several years, it only became hyped in the media in 2010 after the former Apple Inc’s CEO as quoted arguing that the then widely used Adobe Flash was no longer useful for accessing web content such as watching online video. He consequently suggested that the new open standards such as HTML5 are likely to provide more enhanced features and functionalities as opposed to the previous web development languages. Consequently many of the industry leading firms had finally began to work collaboratively with the W3C to standardize the HTML5 (and related specifications) and as time progressed, without being declared as a final specification, HTML5 began to surface into the more modern browsers and slowly dominated the desktop web GUI (Graphical User Interface) by demonstrating and bridging the technology gaps and now appears to be at the epicenter of web-based software engineering and development (Sheldon, 2012).This paper critically analyzes the expected benefits that will come with the adoption of HTML5 with particular focus to some of the key issues that the new technology is likely to solve. The recent announcement of future launch of HTML5 has made a significant impact in the web and graphic communication industry and many analysts have speculated that HTML5 is likely to be the future standard of web design. In view of the limitations and technology gaps between its predecessors and the current needs of web users, HTML has been designed to address some of these weaknesses as well as bring additional enhancements for developers such as better data management as well as drawing, animation, audio and video capabilities. Another important issue that have faced both application developers and the potential HTML5 end users is the compatibility of HTML5 with emerging technologies such as Cloud computing, CDN and the future mobile technologies. Consequently this study will also provide useful information that will help both users and developers to understand the new features of such emerging technologies and whether they will support HTML5 markup language. Lastly, in light of the current rapidly changing technology and an ever growing population usage of handheld devices, it is also imperative to understand some of the current benchmarks and browser requirements to run TML5?HTML5. Statement of the Problem The web has increasingly become one of the most popular media platforms to communicate and share information throughout the world. Many web developers are constantly looking for new ways to enhance the interactivity of their applications as well as the end user experiences and this consequently explains the growing need for more research on the potential benefits the emerging web technologies such as HTML5. Generally with the current rapid technological advancement, there is an urgent need to provide website developers and users with a more flexible technology that will enable more interactive and exciting website features while at the same time offering more efficient and powerful applications. Despite the fact that its predecessors such as HTML, XHTML and HTML4 have always offered useful tools for formatting of web pages for display, these applications have a number of inadequacies and this is particularly attributed to their inability to supply some of the most important features that internet users are currently seeking from information applications. As technology continues its venture deeper into the mobile space, there are new challenges in the web industry that require more advanced technologies like HTML5. According to Dano (2012), one of the major reasons for the limitations of the predecessors of HTML5 is the structures of some of these internet technologies such as HTML were primarily designed to help in the formatting website pages and therefore their structures have not been able to adequately provide for the growing needs of information applications. If the HTML5 adoption concern is not addressed: costs and time-to-market of cross-platform deliveries may continue to increase, platforms may be abandoned due to lack of coverage, applications will continue to struggle using third-part tools and plug-ins and may also lead to the closure of some firms by not aligning with a potential cross-industry changing technology. Purpose of the study This study will provide the much needed information regarding the expected benefits as well as the possible challenges that are likely to be encountered in the adoption of HTML5 in the next few years.The purpose of this research is therefore to provide an effective understanding of both the potential benefits and weaknesses of adopting the new web technology in the technology and graphic communications industry. Research questions 1. What are some of the major benefits of adopting HTML5 as opposed to its predecessors such as HTML, HTML4, XHTML and Adobe Flash? 2. What are some of the issues and challenges associated with adoption of the new mark up language? 3. How compatible is HTML5 with emerging technologies such as Cloud computing, CDN and the future mobile technologies? 4. What are the current benchmarks and browser requirements to run TML5?HTML5? Literature review Introduction With the current rapid growth in web development and changing technologies, it is increasingly important to understand some of the tools and technologies that are likely to be used in the future website designs. This literature review examines the views of a number of authors regarding the expected benefits that will come with the adoption of HTML5. According to Boeri(2011), HTML5 is likely to be the next evolution of web development standards which will provide application developers with an opportunity to effectively create end user experience in their future products. HTML5 Benefits Many researchers also concur that the ultimate benefit of adopting HTML5 is that the new technology will create simpler, cheaper and a faster way of running a website to the application developers. This is particularly attributed to the many new capabilities and features that have been designed to allow for more artistic expression (Taft,2011). Generally HTML5 enables websites to be able to create advanced animations, graphics as well as richer typography. For example, Scribd.com which is one of the most popular documents sharing websites havebegun using HTML5 instead of Adobe flash to improve their graphics and display their documents. On the other hand, Grensing‐Pophal, (2011) argues that the adoption of HTML5 will create a universal set of capabilities that will not only work without plug-ins but will also be freely available to both application developers and end users. The author further notes that unlike some of the plug in applications as Adobe Flash, HTML5 coding has everything that is needed by the users and developers. This is beneficial because it helps reduce the additional cost that application developers are sometimes required to make in order to use plug in applications. Additionally some programs require multiple plug-ins depending on the type of browser being used or the desired functionality Alabaster (2012) suggests that HTML5 is cost effective because it does not involve a number of procedures and policies like its predecessors. Similarly Bhattacharyya (2008) concurs that by adopting HTML5 will allow application developers to enhance the performance browsers as well as the interactivity of their application products. On the other hand, Buckler (2011) provided a demonstration of how the implementation of voice recognition has been added to HTML5 fields and suggested that the new technology will make it easier to expand from accessibility to just user convenience. Features such as this are ultimately not readily available for almost any other language which sets HTML5 apart from other programming languages. A number of authors have also suggested that one of the most important benefits of adopting HTML5 will be its renowned capability of enhancing web applications on mobile devices. According to Gube (2008), some of the mobile applications of HTML5 are already currently being used in iPhones, Android phones, Tablets and iPads among others. In the near future, web application developers are likely to use applications such as WebKit to enable them create websites that will be compatible with various types of mobile devices with different screen sizes. Consequently this will help the users of handheld devices to be able to get the most out of their web experience. Adoption Issues Despite several potential benefits of its adoption, a sizable number of researchers have also discussed some of the limitations and weaknesses of HTML5. For example, according to Boeri(2011), HTML5 may seem to the excellent future alternative technology to the other current applications bet there are still a number of challenges and issues to be considered. Compatibility Generally most of the challenges facing the adoption of this new internet technology are attributed to the fact that being a new technology to the World Wide Web, HTML5 has not yet matured enough to be able to handle some of the high end entertainment experiences that are currently being provided by other applications such as Adobe Flash. This is particularly because HTML5 has not been fully perfected for web use applications and one of the technical challenges is that not all internet explorers and browsers can handle HTML5 (Ozer, 2010). Benchmarks and Performance On the other hand, Dano (2012) also reports on the premature exit of HTML5 mobile apps of firms such as Facebook, which had set off various debates between mobile native vs. HTML5 vs, hybrid implementations of mobile apps. On the flip side, Financial Times (FT) actually had gone the opposite direction and “Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FinancialTimes.com” had stated “We’ve done better than we would have in a native environment” (Dano, 2012). The author also discusses the LinkedIn app’s hybrid approach which leverages HTML5 where there’s little to no sacrifice of performance (Dano, 2012). This article encompasses the more recent limitations of the technology but also discusses the forward looking evolution of the technology and the current trade-offs of performance versus availability and cost. Methodology The purpose of this study is to determine the expected benefits of the future adoption of HTML5 by seeking the views of both application developers and potential end users of the new technology regarding the main research questions. A survey research method will be used and the procedure will involve administering two sets of questionnaires on a selected group of subjects who have been actively involved in the graphics communications industry and another group of web designers who have used the previous technologies such as HTML, XHTML, Flash and are have also designed using HTML5. Generally the user survey methodology will be selected for this research because it is one of the best approaches that can be used to collect quantitative data from a large number of participants. The first group to be studied (potential end users) shall consist of 20 individuals between the ages of 16 to 50. This group will primarily be people who use computer graphics on a daily basis although not necessarily knowledgeable of HTML5. The subjects will then be presented with a list of websites one created by HTML5 while the rest created with each of the previous technologies. The subjects will each be required to use 5 minutes to navigate each of the websites and then answer a list of questions regarding their user experiences. For example, with no prior knowledge on how the websites were created, the participants will be required to rate the websites in terms of interactivity, usability as well as the ease of navigating each of the websites. Lastly the subjects will also be allowed to open each of the websites on their mobile devices and will also be given an opportunity to give open ended responses regarding what they have liked and disliked in each of the websites. On the other hand to provide answers to the other research questions regarding adoption issues, compatibility and browser requirements of running HTML5, the research will also focus on the designers’ perspectives regarding the adoption of the new technology. Consequently the second experiment will involve subjecting a selected group of 18 web site developers who are familiar with a number of web technologies including HTML5 to a list of user survey questions pertaining to their web design experiences when using each of the applications. The results gathered in the two experiments will then be recorded for further analysis. Anticipated findings The study will primarily to seek the point of view of the end users and application developers to identify the potential benefits expected with the adoption of HTML5. It is expected that most users and application developers have expectations that HTML5 will provide a simpler, cheaper and interactive web application. Proposal summary By critically analyzing the perspectives of the application developers and potential end users of HTML5, the study will be able to identify several benefits of the new web technology that are expected by the users. It is expected that most users and application developers anticipate that that adoption of HTML5 will not come with a faster loading speed but will also provide a simpler, cheaper and interactive web application. Although the research is expected to achieve its objectives, there are a few unavoidable limitations that may slightly affect the validity of its findings. Fist and foremost because of the short time limit, the research will only be conducted on a small population size and therefore the researchers will not be able to effectively assess the target variables. Another important limitation is that since the study will primarily use survey research method, the results of the study may easily be influenced by the wording and placement of the questions and thus may result in bias responses. Additionally the reliability of the data that will be collected may be affected by the motivation of the respondents.   References Bhattacharyya, P. (2008). The future of RIA is JavaScript not Flex or Silverlight. Retrieved from: http://prosenjit23.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/the-future-of-ria-is-javascript-not-flex-or-silverlight/ Boeri,R. (2011, December).
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