FEATURE
Mobile Information Alan Dyck, product manager at Innovative Interfaces
Innovative Interfaces is a provider of automation tools for libraries and we already provide mobile catalogue access for all kinds of libraries, both public and academic. However, from the third quarter of this year we will also offer a mobile enhancement for our discovery platform, Encore. While the technology that runs the mobile enhancement is identical to the existing platform, we have reduced the functionality and focused on what is important for the mobile user.
We do have an apps
development strategy, but believe by providing a mobile web-based interface upfront we will reach the largest possible population fi rst
We made speed a priority – the mobile user does not expect a slow experience – but we also
re-built the user interface pretty much from scratch. Our in-house team has experience in app development and is familiar with Encore, so we were able to produce a functional mobile version within six weeks. The fundamental user interface challenge
was to provide the functionality libraries expect from the discovery platform on such a small screen. For example, the desktop version has a big column of results with additional tools on the side but on the mobile device you will see the most important elements, your results, and then you can ‘fold out’ a side bar for other information. We do have an apps development strategy,
but believe by providing a mobile web-based interface upfront we will reach the largest possible population fi rst. Mobile device use is growing phenomenally, but is still a very small fraction of the library visitor. If you look a library’s server, monthly mobile traffi c is still only around two to three per cent so if we had said, ‘right, we’re just going to focus on the iPhone user’, then we’d only reach a fraction of that three per cent.
Jay Flynn, vice president of web strategy, John Wiley and Sons
Our STMS apps include a growing library of journal- and society-specifi c apps (six available now with at least 12 more in development), books, and calculators. We offer Essential Evidence Plus with a dedicated mobile site, and have licensed portions of this content for the Unbound Medicine app, Evidence Central. Wiley Online Library has also been tested extensively on mobile devices, including the iPad 2. Wiley is experimenting
with several development options. We have licensed content to developers like MedHand and Unbound Medicine, have worked with developers like YUDU Media and Handmark to plan and develop custom apps, and have also utilised our own internal development teams. Currently, the overwhelming majority
of our Wiley Online Library mobile traffi c comes from Apple devices, with the iPad representing almost 45 per cent of mobile traffi c and the iPhone/iPod touch making
18 Research Information AUG/SEP 2011
up almost 35 per cent. The remaining 20 per cent of mobile traffi c comes primarily from Android devices, with a small amount of usage from BlackBerry devices. Mobile usage currently represents less than 10 per cent of overall traffi c. In addition to Wiley Online Library, there has been explosive growth in the e-book channel due to the proliferation of better, more affordable smartphones,
e-book
readers, and tablets. We are working on optimising Wiley Online Library for mobile access. As part of that process, we are researching the ways users want to use our
content on mobile devices in order to build the “right” solution. We believe that desktop and mobile users have different needs, and that mobile optimisation includes optimising the available features and designing new ones that best fi t the form factor. Publishing is such a quick-moving business that it’s hard to even imagine what’s around
the corner sometimes – and libraries and research institutions look and behave differently now than they did just a few years ago. I think we’ll see a proliferation of smaller-scale devices in research labs, and more workfl ow tools like our current set of Current Protocols mobile apps, which provide step-by-step instructions about laboratory methods. Also, I would imagine that the native features of some mobile devices such as cameras, GPS and text input will be combined with the “traditional” article to allow for real-time annotation, commenting, revision/expansion of published materials, and broader communication with the scholarly community. We’re evolving from being a provider of content in static form to being a provider of dynamic, new types of products and services our customers use to do their jobs, learn what they need to know, and live their lives. We are increasingly focused on the ways our customers interact with our products and services and using our fl air for innovation and creativity to come up with new ways to activate our content in workfl ow solutions that help them achieve their goals.
www.researchinformation.info
However, once we have reached the
three per cent as best we can, we will start developing apps that will be more focused and have a little more functionality in that native app environment. We’re looking at the location-based benefi ts of application as well as [programs] that tie into hardware. From what I see, the library user wants to
have more of what he or she does embedded in a mobile device. For example, the library membership card can be on the phone so you scan that instead of a paper card, and why not pick a book off the shelf and check it out with your phone. We are seeing people doing more and more mobile self-service, and this is something apps could be providing.
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