Developing a Mobile StrategyAlex Richards & Rachel Wetherall1st 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

Initial Design Mock-up

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?

Questions…