Analysis of Project: www.styletutor.mobi

Project Purpose

The purpose of my project changed drastically over the course of the term. The project was conceived as a text generator to remind students and staff about campus events, and while I still think the idea has merit and could be very useful on my campus, this wasn’t the right time to do it. Among the problems with the college’s new website were issues with students’ text plans and the question of whether or not the application would just become another piece of spam that students delete without reading.

The decision to repurpose my class project came out of a focus group with students who were working on campus this summer. The group consisted of both students who work for me as tutors in our Learning Center and students working in other offices on campus. The tutors in the group were very vocal about me creating something for them specifically, either something that would give them updates or be a resource of some kind.

After probing further into what kind of resource would be most useful to them, we decided I should create something that could help the writing tutors learn the new edition of the MLA Handbook and possibly Chicago Style as well. That kind of content, we thought, would lend itself well to a mobile phone and could be useful to tutors who are tutoring away from the Learning Center as well.

From that decision point, the purpose solidified into me creating a website viewable on a mobile phone that would serve as a reference for writing tutors in MLA and Chicago styles. As of its latest iteration, http://www.styletutor.mobi/ fulfills this purpose.

Concept Success and Demonstration of Skill Set

There are two ways one could judge the success of this project, the first being the success of the site itself and the second being how well the designer demonstrates success with the course objectives.

The Alvernia Style Tutor, which I’ve named my site, is simple in design and appears to be viewable on multiple mobile phones. The site generator I used, www.mobiSiteGalore.com, automatically tests the sites created on it with mobi.ready[1], a free test that analyzes how well the mobile site uses best practices for designing for mobile devices. My published site received a 5 out of 5 mobile readiness score by mobi.ready upon publication.

It has been tested on the Samsung Instinct on the Sprint network and on an iPhone on the AT&T 3G network. On these two devices, the site loads quickly and the links and videos work fine. It is easy to navigate, with minimal images and design to make viewing on a mobile phone easier. Although the site is too new and is yet unknown to the tutors who will be using it, the limited usability testing I’ve done shows that the site should work well for its purpose.

In terms of my own development as a student of reading and writing for mobile devices, I’m pleased with the outcome. At the start of the summer term, I owned a Palm Treo, which I never used to access the web because it was too frustrating to be of any use to me. There was no way I was going to attempt building a site viewable on that phone. I upgraded to the Instinct because I wanted something similar to an iPhone without switching to AT&T. All I knew in June was that one was supposed to be able to develop applications for the Instinct, but that they weren’t as cool as the ones designed for the iPhone. I was willing, but fearful.

Over the course of the project, I overcame a few hurdles that probably seem tiny to others, but are huge for me. I did a bit of reading about text aggregators and coding for mobile sites, all of which went over my head. However, a product of that reading was the ability to create a Wordpress site with pages. I had wanted to play in Wordpress before but couldn’t bring myself to break away from Blogger. Wordpress, however, is easier to convert to mobile format (or so I read), so I initially started building my project in there. Being able to scrap the work I had done in there was difficult, but it wasn’t the right fit for the style guide in my head.

After abandoning Wordpress, I attempted to use Winksite, a mobile website builder. That also didn’t meet my needs, because it was too limited and would not allow me to format text at all. Since a large part of the problem with students using MLA style is formatting, there was no way I could make it work for my project.

Throughout the process, foremost in my mind was my users. I needed the site to load fast and be easy to navigate. That meant no side scrolling. Because of my limited (i.e. none) knowledge of coding, I finally decided on using MobiSiteGalore, a different mobile website builder with a lot more functions and flexibility.

What I’ve learned is that perhaps more than anything, flexibility is necessary when composing for a mobile device, especially when it comes to the designer of the site. I needed to be able to adapt my project to fit the needs of the users and the technology I needed to use in order to do that. It was also necessary to pare down all the fluff and focus on what was necessary for the user with a small screen and a busy lifestyle. Doing so was a challenge at times, but rewarding in the end.

Technology

Using mobiSiteGalore made it relatively simple to construct this site. Users are given limited options for design, which could be seen as a bonus or a drawback. Using predesigned templates that allow minimal customization ensures that the resulting code will be consistent and will work well for mobile devices. The templates force the user to keep the mobile site simple enough to be viewed well on the small screens of phones, while still allowing for images and videos.

The site offers tutorials for a quick start at building a mobile site, but really they aren’t even necessary. Building a mobile site there is as simple as setting up a blog on Blogger. It is just a matter of creating an account, naming the mobile site, and adding pages. Users have a choice to build and host their sites on mobiSiteGalore using a free domain name like http://www.yourname.param.mobisitegalore.mobi/ or to bring their own domain name and host it there or elsewhere. I did not want to use the free domain name because it seemed too unprofessional for something I would direct my tutors to, so I purchased a domain name myself and took advantage of the 60 day free hosting option with mobiSiteGalore.

The user has control over colors, fonts, and text formatting. There are a number of what mobiSite calls “Goodies” as well: E-commerce tools, analytics, YouTube and other audio/ video uploaders, Click-to-Call, and maps. I elected to use the YouTube goodie to add in some video tutorials I created on MLA style earlier on. I also used the Click-to-Call goodie to allow users to dial directly to the Learning Center if they need additional assistance.

Once the site is created, users can add subpages easily by checking off a box to indicate it will be a subpage and choosing which page it should be under. MobiSite automatically placed a link to the subpage on the main page it is under. This was only helpful half the time, because the other half of the time the links didn’t work and it was necessary to relink them anyway. That was an annoyance, but as it only took two clicks to fix, it was minor.

Using the site manager, pages can be edited and previewed before pages are made final. It is also easy to rearrange main pages. Subpages, however, which can appear through links on any other page, can not be easily moved or grouped on the site manager page, making it somewhat difficult to keep track of them all unless they are created in a specific order. Therefore, anyone who opts to use mobiSiteGalore should thoroughly plan out all subpages and create them in groups so pages can be easily located on what becomes a very long list!

Publishing the pages was also simple. As a novice, I was leary of figuring out how to transfer my domain name from the purchase site to my mobi site, but all that really took was transcribing two name site numbers. I didn’t have to deal with any ftp protocol because all creating and editing was done right through mobiSite. Publishing consisted of clicking the “Publish” button and waiting for the site to be scanned for mobile compliant code.

A few times, the site scored a 4 out of 5, and I was able to look through the report to figure out what needed to change. The report directs the user to the exact location of the issue by giving the code line, and even though I don’t know code, I was able to figure out where my errors were by seeing what text the code was surrounding.

One of the more useful parts of the report, show on the screen shots below, is the Visualization, which lets the user see what the site will like look on a variety of phones.

Limitations

Building this site strictly for a mobile device presented a few limitations. Obviously, the builder I used was limited in itself. I wasn’t completely free to choose a design or have anything interactive on the site. Forms are available, but the forms are limited to filling out information and sending it to an email address. I am unable to create a citation builder/checker; however, it might be possible if I knew xhtml because the site does give you access to the code. It would also be nice to be able to include a quiz or activities the tutors could do to practice.

Another limitation is the content on the screen size. When I view the site on a PC, it looks boring, but the citation “recipes” are clear and easy to see. When I view the site on my phone, it looks fine, but I’m concerned that someone unfamiliar with citations will find it difficult to follow the recipes when they are all scrunched together on a mobile screen. If I were not pressed for space on the mobile screen, I would include more visual explanations of what goes where in a citation and why. I refrained from including many images because I was concerned about load time and usage charges for users.

Sustaining and Maintaining the Project

Sustaining the mobile style tutor will be a matter of keeping it updated when new changes occur to each of the three styles it covers. Since APA and MLA have just released new editions this year, there shouldn’t be any major changes for a while. Once I am able to learn the new version of APA and get the content posted, it should be relatively stable. The Chicago style portion of the site can already use some added content, but as I’m just learning this style at the same time I’m building the site, that content will have to come as I learn it.

The larger issue is where the site will be hosted. I’ve put in a request to have it hosted at Alvernia, but have not received an answer yet. As of this moment, it is being hosted for free with mobiSiteGalore for sixty days. If I am not allowed to host it at Alvernia, and I don’t know why I wouldn’t be, I’ll have to decide if I want to foot the bill to host it myself or charge it to the Learning Center somehow.

Assessment

Once the tutors return to campus in a few weeks, I can begin some usability testing with actual users. Depending on what they say about the ease of use, the usefulness of the content, and if they would be likely to use it, I’ll decide how much more effort I want to invest in it. Preliminary feedback will also determine what further assessment I’ll need to do. I’ve already decided I want to learn to code, so it might be more beneficial to create a new site that works well for both pc users and mobile device users.

Conclusion

The Alvernia Style Tutor is a far cry from what I’d envisioned creating at the start of the term. It is all pull, when the original application I wanted to build was a lot more push. My idea was to use mobile devices to reach out to people to get them to engage in face to face activity. Instead, I ended up creating a site that pulls them further away from face to face into their devices. Why ask a tutor when the information is available with no human interaction through the phone?
While it might be useful, I’m not sure what it says about learning and the message I try to send about academic support services on campus. Perhaps that is why I made sure to include a way to easily contact a human in the Learning Center through the mobile site.

Reservations aside, I’m pleased with the outcome of the project. While stretching my skills and seeking out new possibilities, I’ve created something that works and should be useful. Perhaps most exhilarating is the list of questions that I’ve generated for myself as a result of the process. What do users expect from a mobile site; what attributes are most important to them? What kinds of information are users most likely to want to access? And the more theoretical what does the move toward mobile devices as portals to important information mean for humanity?