Which Output to Create: HTML5 or a Mobile App?

New Help Author­ing Tools can cre­ate out­put files, such as HTML5 Help, mobile apps, and EPUB files. In this blog post, I am going to touch on what I see are the strengths of HTML5 Help and mobile apps.

First, some def­i­n­i­tions are in order. A mobile appli­ca­tion, most com­mon­ly referred to as an app, is a type of appli­ca­tion soft­ware designed to run on a mobile device, such as a smart­phone or a tablet com­put­er. HTML5 is a markup lan­guage used for struc­tur­ing and pre­sent­ing con­tent on the World Wide Web and is sup­port­ed by all mod­ern browsers. When I refer to HTML5 Help, I am refer­ring to a help project that can be viewed on com­put­ers, tablets, and smartphones.

The fol­low­ing image shows a screen cap­ture of an app for a fic­ti­tious prod­uct called InfoPath.

The next image shows an HTML5 Help project that is dis­played on a computer.

Strengths of Creating an App

• The pop­u­lar­i­ty of apps is unde­ni­able. Eighty-five per­cent of users said they pre­fer using apps com­pared to mobile web sites. In addi­tion, users are spend­ing more time using apps—an increase of 21 per­cent in 2015 com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. Source: Business2Community
• Ide­al for users who have an inter­mit­tent con­nec­tion to the Inter­net: Once the app is installed on a smart­phone or tablet, it no longer requires a wire­less or mobile con­nec­tion to view the con­tent. In con­trast, HTML5 Help sys­tems require a brows­er, which usu­al­ly needs an Inter­net con­nec­tion to view the con­tent (although some browsers, such as Google Chrome, can run in offline mode).
• Speed: Users will get the answers they need faster using an app ver­sus launch­ing a brows­er, nav­i­gat­ing to your help page, and wait­ing for the con­tent to appear.
• High­er vis­i­bil­i­ty: An app is installed on a user’s smart­phone or tablet, mak­ing it easy to locate and launch. In con­trast, an online help sys­tem is typ­i­cal­ly includ­ed in a soft­ware pack­age and may not be easy to find or open.
• Easy to cre­ate: I’ve cre­at­ed apps in Robo­Help (2015 release) and FrameMak­er (2015 release). Once you have per­formed some con­fig­u­ra­tion steps in both pro­grams, cre­at­ing an app is straight­for­ward.  Note: If you plan to cre­ate iOS appli­ca­tions, you need to pur­chase an Apple devel­op­er account for $99 US per year.

Aside the pre­vi­ous list, there are oth­er issues to con­sid­er, such as how will your app be dis­trib­uted to users so they can view your content.

Strengths of HTML5 Help

• HTML5 Help auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjusts to the user’s screen: Respon­sive HTML5 Help changes the way the con­tent is pre­sent­ed, based on the device the user is using. For exam­ple, when view­ing con­tent on a PC, a user sees online help with a tra­di­tion­al lay­out while some­one using a smart­phone will see a table of con­tents that is opti­mized for touch. Respon­sive HTML5 Help auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjusts to the user’s screen and adjusts to dynam­ic screen size changes, such as a flip of the ori­en­ta­tion or resiz­ing of the brows­er. As a tech­ni­cal writer, you can author new con­tent or take your lega­cy con­tent and quick­ly out­put it so that it can be viewed on PCs, Macs, and smart­phones and tablets run­ning iOS and Android.

Source for image: http://techwhirl.com/adobe-technical-communication-suite-2015-release-profile/)

• Low learn­ing curve: A tech­ni­cal writer cre­ates Respon­sive HTML5 Help in much the same way as tra­di­tion­al help projects, such as Web­Help or Microsoft HTML Help. For any writer that has cre­at­ed online help in the past, cre­at­ing respon­sive HTML5 Help is straight­for­ward. In con­trast, cre­at­ing a mobile app requires some addi­tion­al con­fig­u­ra­tion steps, includ­ing pur­chas­ing an Apple devel­op­er account for iOS applications.
• Con­sis­tent user expe­ri­ence across plat­forms: When using FrameMak­er or Robo­Help (2015 releas­es), one of the ben­e­fits of respon­sive HTML5 Help is it enables users to expe­ri­ence a sim­i­lar help system—including brand­ing and cor­po­rate col­ors that you can eas­i­ly customize—across devices. Whether your users are run­ning a PC, Mac, smart­phone, or tablet, the respon­sive HTML5 Help pro­vides a con­sis­tent user experience.