We've reached the end of our week-long 2022 Dev Camp. Would OCC recommend the 3 technologies we tested? Read our final thoughts on our time spent trialling the latest updates to Blazor and Maui here

On Day 4 of Dev Camp the team finessed their Blazor Implementation work and explored the Entity Framework Core on MAUI.

Today the team will be creating a website and desktop version of the same application using the same code in Blazor Desktop.

OCC begins its Dev Camp 2022 by trialing new technologies in order to determine whether they are product ready.

This article continues our series looking at website accessibility. We will be looking at a relatively new addition to the accessibility guidelines – non-text contrast; another criterion under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines “Distinguishable” guideline. This criterion provides a minimum contrast for graphics – “active user interface components” and “meaningful graphics” (we’ll look at what those terms mean very shortly) with the objective of ensuring that people with certain visual impairments can still understand the controls or graphics without needing[...]

Machine learning. Artificial intelligence. Deep learning. Once purely seen as buzzwords, these concepts were eagerly discussed in theoretical conversations and lofty imaginings of what our future may hold. But now we find ourselves firmly in the data age, where artificial intelligence has become a critical tool in processing the staggering amount of information we produce. Machine learning techniques can be used to crunch the numbers and spot patterns where the human brain cannot. Researchers are implementing their latest findings into[...]

As expected, today’s Budget announcement reiterated the commitment to a shake-up of social care funding in England. There are still unanswered questions about the level of additional funding required to implement the proposals. Here we explore the areas which local authorities may need to consider when estimating these costs.

In this article we will be examining the fifth criterion under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines “Adaptable” guideline. You are likely familiar with the “type” attribute that many input fields support, for example <input type=”text” />. Common types include number, date, checkbox, etc. More niche types include email, tel and password. These are extremely useful, and often cue the browser to offer different behaviour for input. However, those types don’t provide much indication of the purpose of the information. For[...]

ContrOCC Web is our project to migrate the market leading social care finance system ContrOCC from a desktop-installed client application to a modern, browser-based system. Customer first Customer demand sparked this change, and we have kept user and customer requirements at the front of our plans. We are keeping the overall layout of the interface the same as before so that existing users will find it easier to adapt without additional training and support. The objective is to develop a[...]

Earlier this year OCC embarked on the sponsorship of the Fellow for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the University of Oxford’s Reuben College. To celebrate this OCC Directors and our Fellow, David Clifton, held a series of discussions exploring AI and David’s research.

Dominating the news over the past few days has been the announcement of the long-anticipated reforms to health and social care in England. Naturally, the question of funding has remained central to the debate. Measures have been proposed to raise £36bn over the next 3 years through the introduction of a 1.25% health and social levy, along with an increase in dividend tax. Initially however, this levy will be used to fund the NHS, and then eventually be diverted to social care. OCC’s work is intrinsically linked to that of local authorities in the social care sector. We are watching closely to determine the potential impact of the reforms on social care funding on our products. In this insights article, we explore whether any substantial changes have been introduced since Dilnot’s first reform proposals in 2011 and take a look at the potential challenges.

This time we’ll be looking at the second of the criteria under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines “Adaptable” guideline: When the sequence in which the content is presented affects its meaning, a correct reading sequence can be programmatically determined. As with our topic last month, the main issue we are trying to avoid here is for a screen to look perfectly fine visually, but to create problems for assistive technologies such as screen readers. This could occur where the visual[...]

We will be continuing our series of insights articles on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by looking at the first of the criteria under the “Adaptable” guideline: Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined, or are available in text The real crux of this one is that we can make a screen of our application look perfectly comprehensible to a user approaching it purely visually, while a user approaching the same screen using a screen reader[...]

What is refactoring? Refactoring is a process of changing an application’s code and its structure without affecting functionality. Its goal is to bring the code up to date with appropriate standards and patterns, making the code simpler, more generic and less repetitive. Well-designed projects can help developers understand and maintain the code more easily, resulting in fewer bugs and faster development. New team members need less time to familiarise themselves with the product and can follow the existing structure with[...]