Just read another interesting article that I thought should be shared here.
Huffington Post - Web Development Will Evolve
We all know the drill now, smartphones are becoming more and more mainstream and the number of users viewing or making use of online systems on mobile is ever increasing. The article does make a good point about this being the Post-PC generation. Although the semantics of the title could be debatable there is a deeper meaning to it. As more and more web designers or those involved in web development get their heads around designing primarily mobile driven websites, the main devices used to quickly surf the web will be tablets and phones.
Personally, making use of stuff like the Responsive Web Design (RWD) is good for us website builders as we get to expand our target viewers to different platforms and devices. I also expect that we’ll see less use of plugins like Flash and Java runtimes in the future. As developers would be able to transition into using HTML5 features that works out of the box in modern browsers. I’m sure you know that Youtube has done this with a large archive of their videos, moving from flvs to H.264 video codec and the WebM format for HTML5 delivery.
Another thing that is understated, especially in this country, is UAT or QA site testing. Personally, I’ve never had the opportunity to embark in a large project where user load on the site is paramount, so I can only state my personal experience as a user and through reading similar cases. If you’ve followed the Healthcare.gov debacle in the US, you won’t be surprised to hear that the same issue has been plaguing our local sites for ages now.
My personal experience with sites like mohe.gov.my ( 10 years ago when I was applying for Uni ) and the current hot topic of the PBS( School-Based Assessment ). The PBS system was widely maligned nationwide by teachers (including my mother who is a teacher), issues like bandwidth outage and confusion on how to use the system (based on their manuals). It worsen to the point that the Director of Education had to put a halt to the system. Long story short, QA is important for Go-Live and heavy user traffic type sites.
Note to self, consider all the above for future developments. 😉