"Mobilising" web sites at open university: The Athabasca University experience

Abstract

This mobile implementation study provides a general idea of how existing Athabasca University sites work with the tested mobile devices and identifies the underlying issues as to why they work that way. Factors considered in the implementation include screen size, the use of advanced features, the display of large images, file formats and linking to embedded objects. In the effort to make the sites as mobile-friendly as possible, it is also important to consider what some possible solutions are. Redesigning all those sites carefully, with due consideration to mobile devices, is one possibility considered. This creates a huge burden of site maintenance, as we need to maintain multiple versions of the same page for different devices. Another problem with this approach is that as the capability of mobile devices changes, those sites need to be updated accordingly to reflect the device’s capability. This issue is addressed to some extent by creating template-based dynamic pages, and rather than redesigning the pages whenever the device capability changes, one could change the profile of the device.