Mobile - trends, choices, plans

Mobile!Trends, Choices, Plans

David Haskiya, Product Developer

Some mobile trends

Specific Europeana metrics re: mobile

Mid-2011: iPhone 70% of our mobile usersAndroid 2nd

Blackberry, Symbian, Windows near-negligable

Latter half of 2011 onwards: quick rise in tablet usageProjected usage:

December 2011, 6% mobile (incl. tablets)

December 2012, 15% mobile (incl. tablets)

December 2013, 38% mobile (incl. tablets)

Choices: Native app vs. Web app

Mobile apps currently have better usability than mobile sites, but forthcoming changes will eventually make a mobile site the superior strategy.

Jakob Nielsen

Choices: Native apps

Native applications advantagesBetter user experience

Access to onboard devices and sensors

Access to strong distributors (and payment models)

Native application disadvantagesFractured OS-market (Apple, Android, Windows, Blackberry)

Demands diverse development skills

Traffic in a silo outside of the web

Conclusion: Build native apps if you are rich in resources (money, internal development) and are looking for intense user interaction including the device sensors.

Choices: Web

Web advantagesDevelop once, maintain one platform

On the web

Web disadvantagesSub-optimal user experience

Standardised GPS access only, no other sensors

Conclusion: Build mobile web if you have limited resources, a small development team and are looking for a user experience independent of device and sensor access.

Europeana – decisions re:mobile

Europeana and mobile now

Mobile first and Responsive design

Mobile first is a design philosophy that focuses on progressively enhancing a site at increased screen-sizes.Responsive design is a design technique that presents site pages content as effectively as possible at varying screen sizes

Development plans re:mobile

Mobile first and responsive (re-)design of the Europeana exhibitions and Europeana portal

Ongoing

Responsive (re-)design of Europeana 1914-1918Starting very soon!

Any new Europeana web presence will be developed according to the mobile first and responsive design principlesGeo-location aware mobile access prototyping

W3C Geo-location API, ongoing

In the Europeana Awareness project: native app prototype with UGC-aspect

Responsive exhibitions prototyping

Europeana Connect Rich Mobile Client prototype

Europeana Connect Rich Mobile Client prototype

Aren’t you losing out in the app revolution?

So why doesn’t Europeana focus on native apps?1. We’re not good at it. We could learn the basics but never become specialists

2. We don’t have the resources to cover Android, iOS, and Windows

To not lose out we offer instead an Open APILetting developers and companies that are truly specialist do what they do best

The Europeana API – an indirect approach to mobile native apps

The Europeana API version 1.0Version 1.0 launched in 2011

Based on the OpenSearch standard

Available to the Europeana network only

About 20 implementations of the API in production

And about 70 prototype API implementations

Product marketing and Developer OutreachSimple website on Europeana Pro

Simple documentation in Europeana Labs

5 Hackathons that were extremely successful

We’ve learnt a lot. For example that developers love mobile!

Hack4Europe winner of the Inclusion Award: Casual Curator

Hack4Europe winner of the Commercial Potential Award: Art4Europe

Hack4Europe winner of the Innovation Award: TimeMash

The Europeana API version 2.0 (Q3 2012)

Is under developmentSimpler for developers (REST,JSON)

More powerful (anything we can do, you can do)

More scalable (logging, throttling, direct sign-up)

Better documented (interactive docs, API console)

Serves content in Europeana Data Model (EDM)

Is paired with a Development Outreach ProgrammeHack4Europe 2012 in May

Copenhaguen, Warzaw, Leuven and perhaps more

Part of the EU Digital Agenda

Will be an Open APIMade possible by the new Data Exchange Agreement

What would you build?Surprise us.

Thanks! Any questions or comments?

David Haskiya, Product Developer