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Developing a Mobile Strategy Alex Richards & Rachel Wetherall 1 st November 2011. Why mobile?. Learners and staff are increasingly making use of Smartphones For the foreseeable future, we anticipate our internal web-based systems will be the primary route to interact with our data. However…
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Developing a Mobile Strategy Alex Richards & Rachel Wetherall 1st November 2011
Why mobile? • Learners and staff are increasingly making use of Smartphones • For the foreseeable future, we anticipate our internal web-based systems will be the primary route to interact with our data. However… • Analytics show us that, during the last three months, 4.8% of visits to our public website (which has no mobile version) were from Smartphones • Part of the anytime-anywhere learning culture
Why mobile? • Lots of users are coming via iPad, but our existing sites work acceptably there (but in the future we hope to enhance where possible) • For staff, smartphones will have very specific uses that will supplement our full websites. e.g. trips and residentials, attendance capture, employer-site assessors • For students, smartphones will have broader uses that should encourage engagement, interaction and ultimately support learning
Our plan • December 2011: Launch pilot mobile ‘Columbus’ site for staff • Summer 2012: Launch pilot mobile site for students • September 2012: Launch full mobile site for staff • Autumn 2012: Develop mobile attendance capture
Apps vs Mobile Websites Apps: • Arguably provide a better user interface. • Require multiple versions for iOS, Blackberry, Android etc. Mobile websites: • Less polished user interface, BUT improvements likely around HTML 5 • Significantly less work to support multiple types of device
Pilot Project • Using Information Interface Web Client • Hosted on an internal IIS server, using a reverse proxy to make it available to the outside world • Initial testing on iOS and Android devices • Basic Columbus-like functionality
Creating the site • Using II Web Edition to build individual pages • A combination of reportlistviews (core reports), Reporting Services reports, buttons and panels
Creating the site • Test on multiple devices • Test with real users and on real tasks
Lessons learnt Still early days, but: • Navigation and screen design is vital • Once you know what’s possible with the tools, revisit the design/structure to make sure you make the most of the technology • Needs gestures support and full screen mode to begin to feel app-like
The future • Gestures support for swiping between navigation sections will make a big difference to usability • More use of Reporting Services (performance implications) • Considering social media integration • Exploring the use of advanced smartphone hardware, e.g. GPS, audio, camera etc.
The future • Starting to consider how we develop beyond our Columbus system (which was fully written in-house) which is starting to show its age. Possibility for an IIWE based future?