HTML 5 compatibility

Being a Visual Studio environment programmer, I have been using MVC for about 5 months now. Every time I create a new MVC project, I am given the following two options which I normally default to:

• View engine: ASPX
• Use HTML5 semantic markup: leave unticked

Now, I am no way ready for changing the view engine to Razor. I am still getting my head round the MVC concept and at times struggling to remember simple HTML markup after being .NET lazy for several years and primarily using the .NET standard controls to generate the HTML markup.

But what about HTML5? Last year I attended IWMW10 which held a session on HTML5, and to be honest, it sounded awesome! Even though I did not like its lack of control and standards, I very much looked forward to the added features and gadgets that would be out of the box, rather than having to code lines and lines of javascript. So this feature within Visual Studio is always very tempting.

Before running ahead a enabling this option, I decided to do a quick compatibility test on the three standard browsers (Windows only):

• IE 9
• Firefox 5
• Chrome 12

I found the following website: http://html5test.com/ and here are the results.

Internet Explorer 9

Firefox

 Chrome

Spot the difference!!

So I wonder, why does Microsoft offer the ability in its coding software to write web apps using HTML5 if their browser does not support it? 

Come on catch up!!

IE 8 ready for download

Microsoft have released their latest version of Internet Explorer, IE8. It's not as much of a jump as version 6 to version 7 but nevertheless it comes with significant enhancements. This improved web browser is now faster and easier to use. Pages load quicker and its script engine has been improved to minimise the load time for webpages based on JavaScript or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX). Great news for our own in-house developments!

A cool tool for web developers is the Compatibility View toolbar button which displays the website as viewed in Internet Explorer 7. This will correct display problems like misaligned text, images, or text boxes. This option is on a per site basis and all other sites will continue to display with Internet Explorer 8 functionality. In the past it has been problematic upgrading Internet Explorer because we lost the previous version, which made supporting it impossible.

An amazing new tool for the ordinary web user is the Web Slices feature. It lets you keep up with frequently updated sites directly from the new Favorites Bar. If a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser. Click on this icon to easily subscribe and add the Web Slices to the Favorites Bar so you can keep track of that "slice" of the web.

We'll update you on our latest experiences with this new browser. If you want to send us some feedback, just leave a comment.

Getting it right...write now

There are some big changes ahead for the University website, as you will have seen from Jo’s earlier posts. At the heart of these plans is the desire to improve the experience for our website users – whether students, potential students, staff or members of the public.

But putting the technical developments to one side, there are lots of simple things we could all start doing right now to make our website more user friendly.

Here are a few tips for anyone who contributes to our web content...

Putting the user first
It can be tempting to create our content according to how we work, or how we are structured, but this rarely reflects how our users might need to find information. Try to imagine you have no prior knowledge of the University and its workings – what would you need to know? And how would you want that information to be delivered?

The devil’s in the detail
What details are really needed by our users? Sometime the kind of information we use to ‘set up’ our page may be more meaningful to us than to them. For example:

“The Department was established in 1995 and we moved to our new offices earlier this year”.

This may be central to our experience as a member of staff but does the user really need to know?

Hearing us loud and clear
We pride ourselves on being a friendly University and how we communicate is vital part of expressing our character.

Very formal, densely written or complex language can be really off-putting, particularly online. It can give the impression that we are a stuffy, unapproachable place to study or work. For example, which of these sounds friendlier? :

“Our support services are available to you whilst you are a student here, and we trust that you will make use of them should you need to.”

OR

“We are on hand to provide support throughout your time here – don’t hesitate to contact us for more information”

Finally, if in doubt, try reading your web copy out loud - imagine you are talking to a to a friend or colleague. If it sounds or feels 'unnatural' then head back to the drawing board!

Hope that helps. If you are interested in more web writing tips then leave a comment.