Mobile Development Challenges and Strategies

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Mobile DevelopmentChallenges and Strategies

• SSP Fall Seminar Digital Opportunities and
  Challenges
• November 11, 2009
• Alex Kim
• Manager, Web Product Development
• Web Strategy Innovation
• ACS Publications

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Overview

• Challenges
• Strategies
• What ACS is doing JACSß

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Challenges
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Challenge 1 Authentication
Recognized Institution
Wi-Fi on institutions campus
X
Mobile Service Provider
Full Text Article
Access Denied I.P. Address not recognized
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Challenge 1 Authentication

• Possible Solutions?
• Make full text free via mobile app
• Need to be careful that there isnt a way to beat
  the system
• Will it impact institutional usage and
  subscriptions?
• Create a new authentication model
• Something like Shibboleth
• Periodic binding of a device to an institution
• Again, need to be careful that there isnt a way
  to beat the system
• Digital Rights Management
• Hope for the best
• Maybe institutions will widely adopt VPN
  solutions
• Maybe a standard authentication methodology will
  emerge

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Challenge 2 Analytics

• Most mobile usage will not be connected to a
  known entity
• Even if mobile usage is from a known identity,
  depending on the approach you take and how things
  work on the back-end, it may be difficult to
  consolidate mobile usage into your existing
  analytics system. Can you stay COUNTER compliant?
• Solutions
• IT creates back-end consolidation
• Base your mobile delivery on the existing web
  platform

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Challenge 3 Presentation/Behavior

• Tables and equations
• Multimedia
• Audio/Video takes some work, but is definitely
  doable
• Real challenges are things like 3D
  crystallographic structures
• Other device constraints
• Navigation scheme
• Dynamic, JavaScript-driven features wont work on
  many devices

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Challenge 4 Keeping Up with Devices
Android
BlackBerry
iPhone/iPod Touch
Nook
Symbian (Nokia)
FAKE!
Palm Pre/webOS
Kindle
The new Apple iTablet
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Challenge 4 Keeping Up with Devices

• Is the iPhone/iPod Touch really the platform to
  target right now?
• Well over 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches
  sold
• Not the highest market share in terms of units
  sold (15 of smartphones worldwide), but highest
  in terms of actual usage

Published March, 2009 http//news.cnet.com/8301-13
579_3-10184805-37.html
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Strategy
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Three General Approaches (not mutually exclusive)

• Target everyone / Do it quickly
• Create mobile stylesheets alone
• Development Environment Same as website
• Content HTML is unchanged
• Presentation/Behavior Changed to fit mobile
  browser
• Target everyone / Do it better
• Create a separate mobile site or web apps
• Development Environment Same as website
• Content HTML is changed to suit mobile screens
• Presentation/Behavior Changed to fit mobile
  browser
• Target specific devices / Do it best
• Create mobile apps
• Development Environment Different from website
  and different between platforms
• Content Depends on the approach
• Presentation/Behavior Changed to fit the
  devices user interface

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Create Mobile Stylesheets

• What is involved?
• Make small edits to the metadata of your web
  pages
• Mobile devices get recognized and are served a
  mobile-specific stylesheet
• HTML remains unchanged

• Benefits
• Wide reach
• Speed of deployment
• Ease of deployment
• Ease of iteration
• Low cost
• Low maintenance

• Drawbacks
• Limited by the HTML thats used on the website
• May need to choose between
• Reaching a wider audience with fewer features
• Catering to a smaller audience with more features

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Create a Mobile Site or Web Apps

• What is involved?
• Create a new system or sub-system for content
  delivery
• Significant back-end development required
• Create new templates and stylesheets specific to
  mobile delivery
• May even want to have different stylesheets and
  templates for specific devices

• Benefits
• Wide reach
• Better user experience than stylesheets alone
• More flexible for different devices

• Drawbacks
• Significant development
• Higher cost
• Requires some maintenance
• Limiting the audience a bit

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Create Mobile Apps

• What is involved?
• Develop device-specific applications
• Significant back-end development required
• More complex front-end development required as
  well

• Benefits
• Potentially the best possible user experience
• Can be monetized in new ways

• Drawbacks
• May require higher cost than mobile site creation
• Limited to specific platforms
• Requires proactive advertising, unlike the website

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flickr

• Regular Website
• View pictures/video
• Upload pictures/video
• Organize sets and collections
• Batch operations
• Comments, Tagging, Geotagging
• The list goes on...

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flickr

• Mobile Website
• View photos/videos
• No uploads
• No organizing
• Commenting, but no tagging
• View pictures taken nearby

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flickr

• iPhone App
• View photos/videos
• Upload photos/videos
• No organizing
• Commenting, but no tagging
• Cant view pictures taken nearby
• Actually a little bit harder to navigate than the
  mobile website

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Know Your Customers Needs

• End user testing
• Focus groups
• Unsolicited feedback (Help Desk)

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What is JACS Beta?

• Testing ground for the ACS Publications website
• A place to quickly test concepts and gain
  feedback from end users

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Mobilize, Dont Miniaturize
Mobile users operate in a very different usage
context than PC users, and providing them with an
experience customized to their needs is likely to
be the best service you can offer to
them. Dominique Hazaël-Massieux Return of the
Mobile Stylesheet A List Apart (alistapart.com)
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JACS Beta Mobile TOC
AssumptionUsers on mobile devices have a
different goal than users on normal computers
(desktops/laptops). We believe they primarily
want to browse the latest research to stay up to
date and not necessarily read entire articles
while on the go. Limitation Unless users are
connected via wi-fi on an institutions campus,
they are not IP-authenticated to access the full
text of articles. Approach In this project we
provide a way for users to easily browse through
content, mark articles they are interested in
reading the full text of, and then save those
articles to a private repository.
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Live Demo of Mobile TOC Project
http//pubs.acs.org/jacsbeta/mobile
Primarily targets the most advanced mobile
browsers found on the iPhone/iPod Touch, Palm
Pre, and Android phones. Also works on any phone
that has the free Opera Mini browser installed,
though its not as nice of a user experience.
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Step 1 Log In

• Log in with ACS ID is required in order to get
  the full functionality
• Allows you to attach articles to your profile via
  the Favorite Articles mechanism that exists on
  the site

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Step 2 Browse the TOC

• Scroll down the page to view all of the articles
• Abstracts are hidden by default, but can be shown
  by tapping on View Abstract link

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Step 3 Select Articles of Interest

• Click the checkboxes of articles you are
  interested in reading the full text of

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Step 4 Add the Articles to Your List of Favorites

• After checking all of the articles youre
  interested in, navigate to the top or bottom of
  the TOC, and click on the big blue button that
  reads Add selected articles to list of
  Favorites

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Step 5 Articles Are Saved in Favorite Content
List

• After clicking Save to Favorites button, you are
  taken to your Favorite Content list, and the beta
  project is complete. You are now on the normal
  ACS Publications website, which is not yet
  optimized for mobile display.
• Now you can log in on a normal computer, go to
  your Favorite Content list, and view the full
  text of the selected articles.
• Advantages of using your normal computer
• Easier to read
• IP-authenticated
• Ability to print

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Thank You

• Alex Kim
• Manager, Web Product Development
• Web Strategy Innovation
• ACS Publications