Going Mobile at Illinois: Opportunities for an Enhanced Mobile Experience Josh Bishoff, University of Illinois RUSA MARS Hot ALA, 6/26/2010

Mobile tasks Find books. Find libraries. Find librarians. Find articles.

Mobile Device Challenges App or Mobile Website? –Website. Trust me. Only one column for content –We have gotten used to having, say, 3. Unpredictable support for styles, JavaScript, AJAX Differing user interfaces: cursor, finger

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Library Details

Cutting down the Catalog

Cutting Down the Catalog (2)

XML to Mobile Only the most important data Big clickable areas (to anticipate fingers, not necessarily cursors)

The Catalog

Holdings  Maps

Virtual New Bookshelf

New Bookshelf

Bus Data

Preliminary user feedback/ log data Patrons make frequent typos when entering search terms Patrons generally use fewer search terms (I think—data is inconclusive), prefer keyword searching Good success with known-item searching Patrons want more content

The smartphone landscape

App or Webapp? Apps: cool can leverage the hardware o the filesystem, location- based services, user content, other applications Will only work on the platform you chose (Android, Iphone) WebApps: Less cool Run on everything Less time to write Can be accomplished with existing skills/structures, just smaller screens, different tasks

Buy or Build? Build – If your library already develops its own web presence & works with catalog data, mobile development fits into that workflow—and it informs & improves your entire web presence. We’re not suddenly talking about outsourcing all web development; why would we outsource mobile?

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