A Noteworthy Guide Highlighting the Growing Need For Cross Device Usage

We are living in an era, wherein people are increasingly switching to Smartphones and tablets to access the content on the Internet. What's more, most of the people today are using multiple devices to consume the web content, viewing a certain part of the content from their Smartphone and the other part on their tablet or may be desktop. Performing an operation on one device and completing it on the other has become a common practice for most of the people today. This clearly suggests the critical about designing cross-device user interfaces.

Understanding the Cross-Device Reality

How we access the Internet, connect to people and access the web has significantly changed. Lots of marketers are worried about the fact that as people increasingly access the content on Smartphones and tablets rather than the personal computers, because of the personal nature of mobile devices they can't possibly determine the kind of advertising that will work best on those devices.

However that might not be the only problem, according to a new research authorized by Google has been observed that: People are not only going mobile, but also are using multiple devices to access the content on the web at the same time. As per the research, we're now living in the “New Multi-screen World” and thus need to understand consumer behavior towards cross-platform device usage. Below are a few highlights from the research:

• Around 90% of people juggle various device screens for completing a task.

• 67% of people shop online using one device and continue the task on another device.

• Majority of people make use of multiple device screens sequentially, where the main operation is performed first using the Smartphone and completed on some other device, particularly a PC.

Moreover, research also show that apart from using the multiple screens sequentially, a few others use the device screens simultaneously including watching TV and browsing on another device.

Looking at all the data, you'll certainly understand the growing need to develop applications that could communicate across several devices.

Luke Wroblewski's Explanation to Designing For Cross-Device Usage – An Insight

Luke Wroblewski one of the leading UI experts cites that when designing for cross device usage we'll need to examine four components such as access, flow, push, and control. This means that processes that move ensures their continuation across multiple screens.

For example, when looking for a place in Google Maps via your Smartphone, you can easily found a great place. You'll most likely want to read the complete address details about the place and maybe customer reviews regarding the place. Chances are that you would find accessing the content difficult on your Smartphone screen and will require a wider screen such as the likes of tablet to view things clearer.

If you want to offer a better cross device usage experience to your users, a viable solution is to create an “automatic saving system”. This will help to synchronize your data without requiring users to carry out an action explicitly. For example, as soon as a user fills out some fields or selects any option in the check box, a request is sent to the server by the system and the data is saved. This is a good solution but has a downside to it, the device where the change was not made to view the change, users will have to “refresh” or “reload” the page.

In order to implement the above discussed solution you'll need to develop a system that not only sends updates but also receives them the server. This can be accomplished with the help of “Long polling”, “Server-side events” and “Web sockets”. As a result, you'll get a fluid experience and can view content that remains consistent across devices. Now as your able to access the content that freely flows between different screens, make sure that the push and control cross-device usage works for users.

With better control, one device handles the functions for the other. For example your Smartphone can work as your TV's remote control. But for this purpose, you'll have to allow one device to push content or information to the other device, or make one device control the operations of another device.

Conclusion

The purpose of this post is to make you understand the growing importance of making your content accessible to cross-device consumers. Reading this post will help you better understand about how cross-device usage has become a reality, and so, you should design and develop user interfaces keeping cross-device usage in mind. It's obvious, for any developer the first and foremost aim is to achieve user satisfaction. Since, consumers today are using multiple device screens to consume the content, it becomes essential to design an interface that supports cross-device usage to meet consumers needs. As Designs2html Ltd also follows the usage of cross appliance. They also use this in their services. Designs2html a PSD to HTML conversion service company has supported the mobile responsive cross device usage. 

Css Frameworks That Are Gradually Replacing Bootstrap & Foundation

Though, Bootstrap and Foundation offer a high degree of competitiveness, but they are heavy weight frameworks which at some point or the other are responsive for delaying the loading time of the website. In order to improve this we now have frameworks engineered with cutting edge technology which improves the functionality and are light weight. We a designer wants to convert Photoshop to CSS than the functionality of these tools really helps them a lot.

1)ConciseCSS

ConciseCSS is another most crucial Css based framework built on SASS, Stylus and LESS. This architecture pays a golden path for maintaining the CSS. Moreover, those who do not prefer not to go for simple CSS, can also get this from them.

Likewise, ConciseCSS also gives you the leverage of base styles for crucial design elements such as tables, headings, forms, paragraph and other classes in order to make use of button style UI.

2)YUI

YUI is another open source framework based on JavaScript and CSS and needs no extra licensing fees. You can work on YUI which is available under a BSD license and developers can work on GitHub to contribute. This framework has been in the industry for a considerable period of time and hence it comprises of the API which helps them to load content using Ajax, work with DOM and inducing UI effects.

3)InK

In this continually changing technical world, InK is the kit for developing front end interfaces for providing a rich user experience to the users which works as reckoning force for business organizations. No matter what your project size is, you can count on this LESS based framework which offers responsive and fluid grid system. One thing which differentiates Ink from the others is it ability to handle layout, which induces a high degrees of flexibility in portraying your website on a different devices by looking to how your block looks within a grid.

4) Skeleton

All components that were included in the earlier version – buttons, forms and input elements – are still present, but basic typography styles are now set in rem unit.

The Skeleton is back in the market with a total make over. Despite of a lot of changed functionalities this framework is still very light weight. This refurbished system is back to the mobile first technique which makes assures that the website performs perfectly fine no matter what the screen size of the device is.

5) Furtive

Furtive is a modern Css framework which follows the Mobile-first precept for building modern web projects using the Rem unit for defining the size of the elements and the Flexbox for the grid. Furtive does not support the earlier version of the browsers as it holds bas a small amount of CSS footprint. This makes it one of the best framework for developing upcoming websites.

6) Mueller

This modular as well as the responsive grid system is created on Compass and Sass. The Grid can be created by adding classes in to the HTML elements or using the grid() function, for those who do not want to make a mess in their HTML function. For those who are looking forward to adapt the card style layout can use the Muller grid along with the Masonry JavaScript to get that effect.

7) HTML5 Boilerplate

Though it is not exactly a framework, but HTML5 Boilerplate is a template for the front-end of websites which is a prime requisite to build highly successful web applications. Apart from high design it comprises of Normalize.Cs, JQuery and Modernizer which are helpful in creating pages that can work on all browsers and can adapt to browsers and also on browsers which do not support some features. As the HTML5 boilerplate helps in the markup conversion of PSD to HTML5 design also, but sometimes the front end bootstrap framework needed for this also.

8) PowertoCSS

PowerCSS is a light framework design to render a strong front end for your websites. The names of the class used in the framework help in building the grid and apply styles in a very lucid way. It is easy to apply styles and remember them. It also gives you the opportunity if adding your own theme and also have StarterKit to get you going. While applying styles the process of PSD to CSS does not get effected just because of the powerful tool used in this layout and design.

9) Toast

Toast is a another flexible platform and allows easy configuration of the gutter, grid class names and also the column base and this is despite of the fact that the Css classes are included in the package.

This gives you the leverage of changing the number of columns as per your need. This is a very compacted framework which is flexible enough to meet all your tailored requirements.

10) Pure

This lightweight and compact framework of 4.5KB (Zipped) comprises of Css modules was built by Yahoo! It allows you to save your required pieces by compressing their sizes. This is well tailored of mobile devices and this is why it is compared with Bootstrap.

While these bootstrap frameworks also helpful in the conversion process of PSD to HTML responsive design, where the CSS and ultimate Bootstrap front end development is done extensively. The bootstrap has its own power in the area of Front end development, technology, because this is usually used by so many designers and developers who just including master professional design, frameworks, methods and innovation in the designing aspects of a website. If someone uses the above tools, then he or she will be able to achieve the stupendous, consistent, incessant and lucrative design with better conversion rate. The HTML5 bootstrap boilerplate has replaced various obsolete tools that were used in the past. This has been a great achievement for HTML5 developers who are having the in-depth knowledge of HTML5 language. This is true that with the advent of PHP7, CSS3 and HTML5 technology the user experience has been increased also.