Developing a mobile presence: mobile web, usability, and devices
Ebsen Fjord, Nate Hill, Joel Shields
Dissemination with iPads – Ebsen
Boss wanted to spend some money on iPads … They first needed to figure out what they were going to do with them.
Goals for using iPads
- Strengthen staff knowledge
- Use as facilitator for interaction in the physical space
- Educate our patrons
- Be a tech-savvy library
What did we do?
- 30 iPad2’s
- Staff members knowledge and competences
- Apps from apples AppStore – didn’t want to develop their own things, but just use what was already out there
- The physical library
activities
- Playing with music
- Jane Austen reading club
- Read the daily news on the iPad
- Angry birds tournament
- Book reviews on YouTube
- Workshops
Playing with music
- Playing instruments, working with sounds, chords, sheet music and mixing
- 2-3 iPads with relevant apps
- 1 iPad with musicquiz
Jane Austin
- English language reading club for expats
- iPads with Jane Austin manuscripts, books, analysis, and more
- They found reading aids, etc – besides just the book
Workshops – patrons exchanging knowledge with each other
Handling and security
Patrons check them out like a book
Some are mounted in a kiosk
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Nate Hill
San Jose – lessons learned
Scan Jose – historic photos used in a new way
Using google location API for gis stuff
Connected to layar –
Do as I say, not as I’ve done
Obstacles
- It’s a moving target – platforms change fast
- Staff changes – completely changed
- Learned the tech on the fly
- Content and communication – its not just technology, it’s storytelling. It’s hard!
Used storyboards for interaction prototyping
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Joel Shields
Developing a Mobile website for your library
How did I start?
Started by using mobile sites and realizing how not friendly for mobile they were
Created a wish list for the site
App or not – a consideration
- 4 major platforms, each written in a different language, different developers fees, etc
- So went with a web app – absolute control, your own standards,and it works on all devices
Used LAMP, written in php
iwebkit – simple framework of help build a mobile interface
Some catalogs have mobile versions too – he used an XML feed, did a bit of development work, and made a mobile version
Audience – targeting students.
M.wrlc.org – demo version
You can log in and make it personal – basically using the catalog account stuff
Now what?
- Beta testing – find interested people who want to help
- Advertise
- Prove it – track use though google analytics
A few things to keep in mind
- Brevityisthe squalor mobile design
- Make the URL familiar and easy to typed a mobile device
- Don’t overdo it
- Merit personal
- Ok to leave things out
- Make it look good
Plan for the future- leave room for growth - Advertise
- Track usage