Literature Resources

• ubiquity of phones and smartphones; examples of use in education
• “Users increasingly expect anytime, anywhere access to data and services that not very long ago were available only while sitting in front of a computer linked to the network via a cable”
• “The portability of mobile devices and their ability
• to connect to the Internet almost anywhere makes them ideal as a store of reference materials and
• learning experiences, as well as general-use tools
• for fieldwork, where they can be used to record
• observations via voice, text, or multimedia, and
• access reference sources in real time.”

• 32% of Americans have used a mobile device to go online
• African Americans are the most active users of mobile internet (48%)
• in the 18-29 age group, importance of info on-the-go rates higher (60%) than staying in touch with others (57%)
• 19% of adults access the internet on the typical day with a cell or smartphone

• one quarter of 18?29 year?olds (28%) have accessed the internet wirelessly on another device such as an e?book reader or gaming device
• Three?quarters (75%) of teens and 93% of adults ages 18?29 now have a cell phone.
• 83 percent of adults owned a cell phone (or Blackberry, iPhone or other device that is also a cell phone)
• Most adult internet users (63%) access the internet using multiple devices; this is especially true of adult internet users younger than age 50, of whom 70% access the internet with more than one device.
• Accessing the internet via a handheld device is as common among adults as access via a laptop—35% of adults report that they access the internet using a cell phone or other handheld device. One in seven adults (14%) access the internet wirelessly through a device other than a laptop or cell phone such as a gaming device.

Meier, A., Rolnitzky, D., & Schluchter, T. (2010). Mobile bSpace User Research. UC Berkeley, School of Information.

mobile_bSpace_user_reasearch.pdf

• 90% of undergrad respondents use text messaging
• info about course maanagement systems, IT use in the classroom
• about half of student respondents own internet-capable handheld device, but a third of them say they never use the internet feature (see fig 5, pg 10 of key findings for good chart)
• factors in not accessing internet from handheld: access through other means, cost of data plan, no compelling reason to access internet
• activities they do from handheld: checking for info, maps or directions, email, social networking
• want to know about campus emergency via text

• 1 in 7 universities reports using text messaging to communicate with students

• text messaging “suffers from several disadvantages
• including inherent design problems, the opt-in process, character limits, and vulnerability to abuse.”
• “Keeping the cellular contact information up-to-date is yet another challenge”

• mobile services are underutilized by universities
• fictious story about possible university services, including texting reference questions to the library (specifies to attach PDF of references to later use)
• suggests “multimobile” options–voice, text, email, IM
• tutorials and mockups of potential services (Whimsy Project): View document

• “Borrowing from the PC sets up false expectations for
• the mobile experience”
• generally found users disappointed with mobile web because it’s not the same was using a PC (though was in 2008, expectations may be different now)
• “Powerful experiences happened when participants were
• able to connect to Internet content to fulfill a pressing
• need in a mobile context.”
• metaphor of PC use as scuba diving (deep and explorative) vs. mobile as snorkeling (shallow)

• “Attitudes towards text messaging from the Library are overwhelmingly positive.”
• want text messages for “useful” things rather than promotion
• rank reminders by text highest, the search of library catalog

• not worthwhile to make entire site mobile, just pieces for people on the go
• role of WebKit
• CSS stylesheets for mobile detection
• “Be careful about handoffs to nonmobile optimized pages.
• If it’s not a mobile-friendly site, think twice about sending
• your users there.”

• “[offering mobile services that require authentication] involves additional effort and introduces privacy and security concerns”
• “One area of great potential with mobile IT is in location-aware applications, but whenever computer
• systems know where users are, privacy and security concerns arise.
• Institutions that pursue such applications should develop a policy that outlines what data are collected, as well as how, and under what circumstances, they can be used; such a policy might also allow users to opt-out of location-aware applications.”

• “Survey respondents were more positive about accessing information through text messages than through the mobile internet.”
• “50% of respondents at both universities said they take photos of signs, books, etc to
• save information for later reference”
• “55% of total respondents were in favour of being able to access the library catalogue from a mobile phone”

• “However, the overall picture is that few libraries in the United States have begun to experiment with text
• messaging as a means of providing information to library users, despite
• the vast number of potential library users who regularly use text messaging as a means of communication.”
• 3 options: text-to-email; dedicated phone; AIM hack (text-to-chat)
• “There is some indication that 20 to 40 messages per month may represent a stable rate of patron use of an SMS library reference service”
• “we suspected that text messaging would represent the next
• logical step in enabling our users to communicate with us from their most
• immediate point of need.”
• “The service is used most heavily for Circulation questions and for questions
• about off-Grounds access to databases.”
• “Although usage of text messaging as a means of contacting reference
• staff remains low when compared to phone, e-mail, chat, or in-person transactions, the overall number of SMS queries has grown steadily over the past year”

• “Currently, many
• students who own laptops do not bring them to campus, but students almost always
• bring their cell phones wherever they go. In fact, this is true of people of all ages and
• nationalities.In an international survey, three quarters of respondents said they never leave home without their mobile phones.”
• “As smartphones become our users’ key information devices, libraries will want to have a significant presence in offering content and services suitable for those devices.”
• future of eReaders vs. smartphones
• “Academic libraries have the reputation of thinking long and hard,
• debating all of the fine points, before deciding to implement a new technology or
• technology-based service, sometimes missing the peak of the trend”
• “The challenge for academic libraries is to create compelling information services and to make digital content available in a way that our user community will find not only acceptable, but tailored to their needs.”

• “The ability to not only download and view videos but also to stream videos to mobile devices are key components of today’s smart phones such as the iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberries, and the new Android phones, as well as
• digital media players such as the iPod or iTouch.”
• descriptions of video formats, vodcasting, iTunes U
• “Health sciences libraries are creating video tutorials for their Web sites or electronic resources as well as video orientations and training videos.”

• “my main conclusion from watching iPhone app users is that they suffered much less misery than users in our mobile website tests. In fact, testing people using iPhone apps produced happier outcomes than testing people attempting to use websites on the same phone.”
• “mobile apps have different usability criteria than core desktop applications, as well as the mission-critical enterprise software that people use every day on the job.”

• “When our test participants used sites that were designed specifically for mobile devices, their success rate averaged 64%, which is substantially higher than the 53% recorded for using “full” sites — that is, the same sites that desktop users see.”
• “Still, users often had trouble getting to mobile sites, even when companies offered them. The best approach is to auto-sense users’ devices and auto-forward mobile users to the mobile site (even if they’re using a high-end phone). You should also offer clear links from the desktop site to the mobile site, as well as a link back to the full site. As for link labels, we recommend “Mobile Site” and “Full Site,” respectively.”
• “Linking to the full site supports users who want advanced features that the mobile site doesn’t support. Given this fallback solution, you should scale back the mobile site’s functionality and focus on features that people are actually likely to use in a mobile scenario”
• “Today’s mobile users are highly search-dominant. When we don’t specify which site they should use (and often even when we do), they turn first to their favorite search engine. Again, this means plenty of typing, which is slow, awkward, and error-prone on mobile devices.”

• “Download times dominate the user experience. Most pages take far too long to load, particularly on non-3G phones. But even the highest-end phones deliver much slower browsing than a desktop computer. As a result, users are reluctant to request additional pages and they easily give up.”
• “For the best user performance, you should design different websites for each mobile device class — the smaller the screen, the fewer features, and the more scaled back your design. The very best option is to go beyond browsing and offer a specialized downloadable mobile application for your most devoted users. In practice, however, only the biggest and richest sites can afford all this extra work on top of their desktop-optimized website.”
• “Feature-phone browsing is essentially a linear experience, whereas smartphone and full-screen browsing provide more of a GUI experience — albeit through a limited viewport.”

• “Feature-phone browsing is essentially a linear experience, whereas smartphone and full-screen browsing provide more of a GUI experience — albeit through a limited viewport.”
• “This study is promising for the future of e-readers and tablet computers. We can expect higher-quality screens in the future, as indicated by the recent release of the iPhone 4 with a 326 dpi display. But even the current generation is almost as good as print in formal performance metrics — and actually scores slightly higher in user satisfaction.”

• Not all parts of the library web site should be made mobile; instead, consider what content makes sense for the mobile user, build on existing web services that offer time-sensitive and location-based services, and focus on adding elements that are fun,fast, and easy to implement.
• Both Innovative Interfaces, Inc (III) and OCLC have developed a mobile search application that can be used by libraries wanting to provide a mobile catalog experience.
• WorldCat Mobile does not currently offer customized views for WorldCat Local, it is only compatible with a small set of smartphones, and some mobile users need to download two applications to their mobile devices: WorldCat Mobile and Boopsie
• Instead of optimizing for smartphones, the AirPac search interface is designed to work on feature phones and therefore works on a wider range of mobile devices. However, the search interface is just a smaller version of the desktop interface and does not take into account the mobile context or provide any additional features.
• While providing access to the library’s hours, staff contact information, and directions to the library is an important first step, what users typically want from a library is direct access to research materials. Offering a truly mobile catalog interface with links to mobile-friendly catalog records will make the library’s resources actually usable for mobile users.
• At Oregon State University Libraries, we promoted the mobile web site on our library homepage, posted information on the libraries’ Facebook fan page, and disseminated a press release through the University’s media relations office, which resulted in a mention on the local evening news and an article in the student newspaper.
• Our assessment plan includes tracking online usage stats (which is currently averaging 100 unique visitors per day), an online survey attached to the mobile web site, focus groups, and user testing.

Interesting screenshots from Handheld Librarian III conference, July 28-29, 2010

handheld_librarian_screenshots.docx

• article regarding generational attitudes toward privacy
• “we found that large percentages of young adults (those 18-24 years) are in harmony with older Americans regarding concerns about online privacy, norms, and policy suggestions. In several cases, there are no statistically significant differences between young adults and older age categories on these topic”
• “A gap in privacy knowledge provides one explanation for the apparent license with which the young behave online.”
• “An important part of the picture, though, must surely be our finding that higher proportions of 18-24 year olds believe incorrectly that the law protects their privacy online and offline more than it actually does.”

• graphs of how mobile internet time is spent
• “In a Nielsen survey of mobile web users, there is a double-digit (28 percent) rise in the prevalence of social networking behavior, but the dominance of email activity on mobile devices continue with an increase from 37.4 percent to 41.6 percent of U.S. mobile Internet time.”
• “Although we see similar characteristics amongst PC and mobile internet use, the way their activity is allocated is still pretty contrasting, added Martin. While convergence will continue, the unique characteristics of computers and mobiles, both in their features and when and where they are used mean that mobile Internet behavior mirroring its PC counterpart is still some way off.”