Page 44 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014incorporates and which could have such a major impact on issues that are highly relevant to the cultural sector, such as the protection of digital rights, although this leads us away form the subject of this article. But what makes HTML5 particularly suited for managing mobility are its new application programming interfaces (APIs) which make it possible to provide a functionality equivalent to what could before only be achieved by direct calls to the various mobile operating systems.Other technologies that underlie responsive design are the so‐called media queries, that are able to recognise the device on which the browser is running, and the CSS3 standard for cascading style sheets, which makes it possible to define shared styles and create specific styles for big displays using relative units that make “fluid design” possible, both in terms of column width (fluid grids) and image size (fluid images).design complicates things unnecessarily and confuses us. Good design can tame complexity”1.By way of a summary, if one makes a comparative analysis of mobile web technologies and the development of mobile applications, it can be said in favour of the former that the service can be found through a search‐engine or link, but with the disadvantages of having to be connected to the Internet and the limited use made of some of the devices’ most advanced features. Until recently it was said in favour of mobile apps that they would make better use of the features of the device (push notifications, GPS localisation, camera, NFC payments, biometric security), and that they would work without a network connection, but as already mentioned this distance is becoming shorter and shorter thanks to the evolution of browsers.The good news in the face of this dilemma is that mobile applications may not only be native, that is, run exclusively by means of calls on the mobile operating system, but also hybrid, and these are re‐ usable on different types of mobiles. Applications of this type do not need a network connection and achieve the goal of “build once, run everywhere” through the use of standard Web development technologies (Java, HTML5...) and a specific “container” for the device. For the user this is transparent, since they have the same look and feel and functionality as those available in the App Store. In April 2012, the Gartner consultancy predicted that by 2015, 80% of all applications developed will be hybrid, or “mobile web”. It seems then that mobile applications come quite close to being the best of both worlds.All mobile applications, be they hybrid or native, have the peculiarity that they can be downloaded from big distributors such as Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Win Phone Marketplace or Blackberry World. Although it is difficult and costly to assess what proportion of mobile apps on these sites are related to digital culture, the book industry, games and education clearly have the largest presence. For example, in the Apple App Store alone one can count 26% games and entertainment, 11%At themomentthere are veryfew websitesthat could beregarded asfullyresponsive, but the Web world is rushing to achieve this. For example, the website dconstruct.org, which describes itself as a meeting point for people at the intersection of culture and technology, applies this sort of technology. If you access it in a desktop browser and reduce or increase the window size you will see how different objects on the page are resized in consequence, and similarly the site will adapt to whatever device is being used for access. Another example is the website www.omusicawards.com. A responsive website to which a visit is recommended is Smashing Magazine, specialised in the “user experience”, a new sort of specialisation that proves to be essential to properly analyse and design the user’s navigation through various interfaces. In the words of MIT researcher Don Norman, one of the fathers and driving forces behind the concept, “It’s not complexity that's the problem, it's bad design. BadAC/EResponsive Web sites resize and adapt to all of the devices used to access themWHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 4: CULTURE IN THE CLOUD CURRENT PAGE...44