Current trends in Mobile Web and what it means for Open Educational Resources

Mobile Web and OERJure Cuhalev

[email protected] Twitter: @gandalfar

Open Education Global 2015

http://a0.www.animoca.com/v1.0.15/en/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/All-the-Myriad-Androids-Animoca.png

Statistics

14%

39%

47%

Desktop Mobile Tablet

Source: http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/safari_ios_bigg.html

Source: https://twitter.com/BIIntelligence/status/452174966788608001

Snapchat 100M+ monthly users

Why should you care?

Source: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/05/28/idc-tablet-projections/

Problems

• PDF doesn’t reflow

• Flash apps often don’t resize

• Java has similar problems, if the apps aren’t built with responsibility in mind (and security)

• Conversation tools won’t fix the above problems

Responsive design to the rescue?

Responsive is not enough

• Often reduces user experience by forcing fixed user patterns on users

• Device pixels vs. device resolution

• Often requires technical workarounds that are hard to test and maintain

• Wide range of input devices

Accessibility

• Basic HTML is still the best

• Following W3C Web Accessibility standards (aria-*)

• Descriptive, optional information

• Subtitles, captions and transcripts

Data

• (Mobile) internet access is still very expensive

• Don’t assume your users can always access your content (e.g. iPod Touch, Tables)

• Compiled formats that are device agnostic - .mobi / .epub

Prototype and test• Storyboard student experiences

• Survey and test the experience, check the stats (Google Analytics)

• Test on actual devices with target students

• Consult with your accessibility team

• Embrace Agile development workflows

Good example

Good practices• Provide offline, device agnostic downloads using

(open) standards

• HTML, MP4, collection in .ZIP

• PDF with .ODF, .mobi and .epub as alternatives

• iTunes U and Podcasts as alternative download formats

• YouTube as alternative

Problems• It’s not currently possible to use standards to

download and cache content on all devices

• You can stitch them together, but it’s complex

• Solutions are Desktop oriented The coming war on general-purpose computing by Cory Doctorow - http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Opportunity

• Document good practices and highlight technological shortcomings

• Build next generation of CHM like tools

• Increase the cross-domain collaboration

• HTML5 Client Side storage