The University has been working a lot lately on developing a mobile presence. Lori Nidoh, our newest TAG member and a representative from the PR office, took a few minutes to write up an update for us:
At the end of this month the University will be launching both a mobile application and a mobile website. These presentation slides (in PDF) explain the context surrounding our decision to move forward with the mobile projects at this time and provides a preview of the functionality of both.
In addition to the 15 features that will be included in the mobile app at launch, several new modules are in the works for later this year such as Admissions, Alumni and Library.
A promotion plan is in place to support the launch of the mobile application which includes posters and table tents on campus, a slide on the iTower in DeNaples, a story and advertisement in the Aquinas, posts on the University’s social media pages, tiles on the home page of the University’s website as well as on Admissions and other key pages that will link to a splash page containing full details on the app.
The new mobile app will also be featured on billboards and mall posters in our secondary recruiting markets of MA, CT, MD and VA and on upcoming Admissions direct mail pieces and at Preview Day for accepted students in early April. Finally, there will be an official press release and the launch will be featured in the April 5 edition of Royal News.
The mobile website is in the final stages of development, at least for phase I. You can access it at m.scranton.edu. The mobile site will have a much quieter entrance – we are looking at ways to insert an icon on the home page and on other pages on the full site where there is a mobile equivalent, and we will include a tile on the mobile app splash page that gives basic info on the mobile site. It will also be announced in Royal News and on the University’s social media sites. When the new server goes online in early June there will be the ability to have an automatic redirect to the mobile site when the server recognizes a mobile operating system.
We will keep you posted about developments in both the mobile app and site and welcome your feedback and suggestions.
If anyone has questions or comments for Lori, let us know!
Thanks for writing this up for us! I appreciate the advanced chance to look at the mobile site. I did some looking around at it, and I have a few (hopefully) constructive comments about it.
1) The picture banner across the top takes up a LOT of screen real estate when the phone is in landscape orientation. On my Droid, I can’t see any of the menus (academics, etc.) on the screen initially. All I see is the U. Scranton logo at the top and the picture of the DeNaples center. Not that this is a *problem* per se, but a curiosity at least.
2) It seems like there’s a good mobile page for everything except the Academic Calendar and the Graduate programs. The Academic Calendar calendar just shows the table of the dates that we can find online, which is fine, but I’ve always disliked the way that looked and found it really tough to find what I’m looking for, but that’s personal preference there.
3) The list of graduate and undergraduate programs is, to say the least, daunting! There’s no real organization, and it’s a LONG list. Is there any plan for making different drop down menus (like under Admissions or Social Media) to help organize those lists? How about links to the department web pages? The link to the catalog doesn’t really give the quick picture of the departments that I would like to get from a mobile site, unless I’m starting to plan out my classes already.
4) Speaking of department web pages… Are there expectations for the departments to maintain a mobile version of their site?
Thanks,
Jeremy