Macadamian Blog

New HTML5 innovations that speed & simplify development

The following is information we learned from Dan Menard (dan-menard.com ) when he gave us an internal presentation on HTML5. This is the second in a series.

In my last blog post I discussed HTML frameworks that simplify the use of HTML5. I’m now going to dig a bit deeper and talk about four helpful tools – some that exist and some that are still in development – that will help developers in their day-to-day work within those frameworks.

1. New Client-Side Validation Tools:

Client-side validation is probably one of my least favourite things about development. Luckily, it’s getting a whole lot easier with HTML5. When developing forms on the web that handle e-mail addresses, URLs or other user inputs, you usually need to write a lot of validation scripts to ensure that those entries are valid. These scripts can be pretty tedious to create and can’t always be ported from one project to another.

Luckily, HTML5 uses input elements that eliminate the need to write complicated validation scripts for common forms. These elements can automatically detect whether the user has inputted a valid entry.

For example, if you want to have a field that can only accept regular expressions, you can use an input pattern attribute to automatically generate the appropriate field:

Taking the Stage at BlackBerry World 10

Last week, Daniel Baxter, one of our Senior Developers, and I were on stage at BlackBerry 10 Jam talking about custom frameworks we've been building that work with OpenGL and Cascades. If you haven’t seen the video of demo at BlackBerry Jam, check it out. We were given the opportunity to show off one of our apps that makes use of custom controls that pull in content from various resources to aggregate the information and present it in an attractive and useful UI.

Background

This all began when we got a sneak peak at BlackBerry 10 a while back, saw some of the concepts like flow and connect, and realized what was possible using Cascades with a minimal amount of code. We got excited and decided to create a demo that embodied those concepts in an Enterprise context. We wanted people to rethink how they might go about building a really rich enterprise app in BB10.

Social Platforms Will Make Enterprise Software More Useful

Listening to Marc Benioff at Web 2.0, I latched onto three things he shared with us:

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

• Facebook is becoming a vision of what the consumer operating system is,

• Social media is an acceleration,

• Internet of things concept.

Designing for the Mobile Clinician: Do Not Be Afraid

I came across a surprising mobile fact related to the healthcare setting…. “physician smartphone adoption outpaces the general US adult population’s adoption of smartphones” (Dreyer 2012). Based on this explosion, many members of the user experience (UX) community may find themselves in a new, exciting area of work. Healthcare.

Do not be afraid. Plenty of familiar guidelines and work experience from other industries can be drawn on to support design work for the healthcare industry.

Some of the same considerations for designing mobile apps for the general population exist for clinicians as well. For example,

• Should the app be web, native, or hybrid?
• How will the app function so that expectations are met regarding existing UI guidelines?
• How will the app be used? What goals should be met?
• How will the app fit into the users context of use?
• What is the platform and device to be used?

RIM is Back!

The rumors of RIM's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

We just got back from BlackBerry World, and I was simply floored by what I saw. We're a longstanding RIM partner, so we've been getting sneak peaks of BlackBerry 10, and we were impressed with what we're seeing, and what we're able to create with their new Cascades framework (more on that later). But I wasn't prepared for what we saw in the BlackBerry World Keynote.

Incredible User Experience

The new User Experience of BlackBerry 10 is simply amazing. RIM is really sweating the fine details of the new UI. The transitions are organic and gorgeous. Apple caught everyone unawares when they released iOS, and it's in the fine details like transitions and scrolling where other platforms like Android don't measure up - they simply don't feel as realistic and natural as iOS. The UX and software teams at RIM are clearly making sure that the finer details of the platform feel as good as, and in some cases better than, iOS. I think developers, and the industry, will be really surprised with what you'll be able to do with BB10 and the new Cascades UI framework. Here's a link to the part of the keynote where they show off the new UX - see for yourself, and hang on through the keyboard and camera demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OfHLjlogDS8#t=1208s