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HTML5 has an important place in publishing and eCommerce design

HTML5 forms are highly useful methods of interacting with a variety of different customer bases through any e-commerce portal, but they aren't the only way to use HTML5 to reach an audience. The utility of forms is that they can help a customer interact with a webpage in a more meaningful way, by typing something into a search field, enter in a phone number to be contacted through, or other similar methods of communication. Most people browsing will not even think of what they are doing when they type into a browser as different from their normal use of the Internet, because consumers as a whole have grown used to entering data in online. Making sure that this process is as painless as possible is an important element in creating a strong website.

WhaTech has laid out a few tips for those coding in HTML5 on how to make sure that forms are as useful as possible for customers. The use of different input types that display the appropriate keyboard for mobile devices when a field is being used. The type="email" field, for example, displays the version of a keyboard designed to enter in email addresses. Numeric fields get type="number". These subtle variations can go a long way toward making a user interface easy for customers to understand.

Not just for forms anymore
There are other ways beyond HTML5 forms that a company can reach people using this language, though. In fact, in order to optimize for smartphone users, it is better that an organization doesn't use too many fields on their page. Mobile users will only accept a certain amount of thumb-wrangling in order to purchase something, after all. Instead, looking at the way that HTML5 approaches promotions can be an excellent way to gain market share. A recent new development is the Pub HTML5 site, which offers software that allows companies to convert PDF and word files to HTML5 "flip books." These are easy to read on a mobile device like a phone or a tablet and have the portability that HTML5 offers. Using this kind of product is going to become more common for organizations down the line as the lesson of keeping content system-agnostic becomes more thoroughly engrained in the business community.

As companies learn to use more mobile devices as a part of their long-term strategies for connecting with customers, there will be more instances of them utilizing strong HTML5 coding components throughout their content creation process. The design of materials that can be widely dispersed without worrying about what kind of device will be used to read them is an important part of streamlining marketing and public relations for organizations in general. By adopting HTML5, a group can very quickly make a large impact in the compatibility of their work and reach a much larger audience base. The amount of devices on the market will only continue to grow, so finding ways to work with all of them is of the utmost importance.

MESCIUS inc.

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