offline strategy for an online world

Offline Strategy for an Online World

Taking a look at Chromebooks in education.

August 6th, 2016

Table of Contents3 Introduction

7 Chromebook Overview

11 Chromebook Analysis

14 Open Discussion

15 Designing for Education

24 Conclusion

2

Introduction

IntroductionExperience• Currently the Lead User Experience Designer

for K-12 Learning Services at Pearson.• Previously worked for O’Reilly Auto Parts on

their B2B ecommerce website that generated ~500 million annually.

• Experience ranges from startups to Fortune 500 companies with a primary focus on web applications.

Education• Master of Science, Technology (MSTech),

concentration in Graphic Information Technology, Arizona State University.

• Certificate, User Experience and Customer-Centered Design, California State University, Fullerton.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmeyer1

I think it’s safe to say that we live in a very connected part of the world. I think it’s unsafe to say that our online experience is consistent in a way that we are always connected.

Has your home Internet connection ever gone out? Have you ever travelled into a dead zone where your phone’s data wouldn’t work?

How about low-income families in the United States that don’t have access at home to the Internet? Even better, how about the world?

How do you plan for, and design an experience that will hold up during these transitions of going online and offline?

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At Pearson we strive to serve all of our customers in the best way possible.

We constantly tackle better ways to bring the best possible experience by:

- Designing for all ages- Keeping accessibility at the forefront- Providing a positive experience for when

devices are both online and offline

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Chromebook Overview

Affordable, Manageable, Scalable

8Reference: https://www.google.com/edu/products/devices/

Unlimited Students*


Basic Chromebook

10https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Chromebook-XE500C13-K01US-11-6-Laptop/dp/B01APA6K6M

• 16GB Solid State Drive

ChromebookAnalysis

Chromebook Storage


• 10.30GB remaining after logging in for the first time (on 16GB device).

Offline/OnlineChromebooks are primarily for online use and have limited functionality offline.

Many Chrome apps are actually just links to websites. These are known as hosted apps and they run in the browser.

Packaged apps usually contain all of the files to run offline, but this means you have to download them to the device.

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Discussion

What are some Chromebook advantages?

What are some Chromebook disadvantages?

Can you really have unlimited students on a Chromebook device?

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Designing for Education

Making Content Available OfflineStudents need an equal opportunity to learn.

A physical book can be accessed regardless of your Internet connection. A digital book, course materials, and digital assignments can pose certain challenges.

Is there an equal opportunity if one student has Internet at home and another does not?

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Managing a Seamless Transition

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1. Make the transition from online to offline as seamless as possible.

2. Manage the size of the content you are producing.

3. Give the user friendly options for managing their own device space.

4. Save state now, and then upload later.

1. Seamless TransitionsFacebook now allows you to post offline. Whenever you go back online it will upload the post.

In the education industry we do our best to provide a similar experience. Students can complete an assessment offline, and the device will automatically submit the assessment to the instructor when the student is back online.

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Ask yourself:

Does this have to be in real time?

If yes, then why does it have to be in real time? Is there a new way to envision a hybrid of real time and offline?

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2. Managing Content SizeSmaller content sizes solve several issues. They reduce:

- Download time- Device storage needed- Amount of data used

When moving over to our Chromebook application we started to drop the use of background images in our course lessons that we use on iOS and Windows. We want the ability to store as much as possible for when we are offline.

We also ditched the use JPEG and PNG files for simple icons and illustrative images and moved to SVG’s.

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3. Managing Space

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Giving your users some control over their content can also be a good idea. Below shows Unit 1 ready to use, Unit G-1 downloading, and Unit 2 has the option to download it.

Instead of downloading the entire course (which you still can if space allows) you can select individual units. They will now be available offline.

This is similar to our Facebook example on seamless transitions.

In an education setting we can often send/receive assignments, take/submit assessments, and also add annotations to books that we are reading. These all wind up in the cloud which allows you to change devices, but being offline shouldn’t prevent you from completing your work.

You should be able to use the application as you normally would, and the cloud activity can take place at a later time.

4. Upload Later

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Reference: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/richNotifications

Uploading an item at a later point in time is a great tool when dealing with offline scenarios.

Remember, this ties in with our seamless transition point. The end result should be an experience that the user doesn’t have to track and be worried about.

Chrome also has the use of notifications which can be a great option to notify a user at a later point that something sent, or did not send if an error occurred.

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Conclusion

Conclusion

There are many ways to deal with offline scenarios and these are just a few that relate to designing a Chromebook application for education.

Nearly all applications can benefit from some sort of offline functionality. Our Facebook example proved that even an application that seems to solely rely on the Internet, still has a level of offline functionality.

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Questions?

Find out more about us at http://www.Pearson.com