Preparing for Mobile Learning – Part II

There’s an App for that!

You’ve probably heard that saying a million times, partly as a joke and partly because it seems true almost all the time.  

I’ve had several clients reach out to me determined they “need” an app for what they are trying to do, and after doing a lot of analysis and investigation into why they think so, it usually comes down to a few reasons.

• They want to be hip/trendy for those millennials entering the workforce,
• They’ve been told to do something with “mobile” or “modern learner”, or
• Someone else has an app and they want one too.  (This one is more common than you would think.)

So, what’s wrong with an app?  I am the last person to knock down technology, especially one that has many proof cases that show it is effective.  However, I am almost always skeptical when I am presented a solution to a problem/gap before there has ever been any more formal analysis to the problem.  I started out my career on the IT side of things, and when I came over to the education side of the house it seemed everyone thought e-Learning was the solution before they even knew the problem.  This led me to be more of a naysayer than a proponent to e-Learning for a lot of the requests.  Not that I didn’t think they were effective, but I knew there was a better way.  Before you continue on with the next point, really spend some time to think if this is what you need or is there a better way!

Do you want an app OR a mobile website?  When I have asked this question, I almost always get the response, app.  What is the difference between the two?  I am sure a lot of you have additional lists of differences, but to keep it simple for my clients, I try to keep it very high-level to get them thinking.  

• APP:  An app is software that is developed to do certain tasks on a device.  Most of us think of mobile apps when we say app, but these days we now have to consider tablets, laptops and even desktops when looking at apps.  This software is designed to be downloaded and run within the operating system is was installed on.

• Mobile Website:  A mobile website, or commonly referred to as a website designed with responsive design, is, for all intensive purposes, a website. The main difference is that it functions well with the device you are accessing it from.  Without getting geeked out on all the details, there are plenty of sites to do that; mobile websites are designed using HTML5/CSS3 to change the layout of the website to modify the size and items displaying to adjust to the device you are viewing it from.  

Which one is better?  Well, it really depends on what you are trying to do.  Each has their pro’s and con’s.  Depending on what the end result of your analysis is, choosing one should be fairly simple based on what they are good for.

• APP Pros:  
• Offline Access: You can use the app without being connected to a network.
• Gaming: You can utilize the devices processing power to load and run the game and you are not depended on the connection speed.
• Complex Tasks: Think similar to gaming, if you are running reports, spreadsheets or other tasks that are memory hogs an app is the better choice.
• Device Functionality Usage: If you are using things like the devices built in camera or geo location then an app is perfect for this.

• Mobile Website Pros:
• Compatible Across Platforms: This is a huge advantage to responsive design!  With all the different devices out there with a mobile website with responsive design, you only need to build and more importantly, maintain, one site.
• Cost:  Generally mobile websites tend to be a lot less expensive than and app.
• Quicker to Market: I am a huge advocate for Rapid Application Development, RAD, which gets your site at that 80% readiness and allows you to move into usability testing far quicker than developing multiple apps.  
• Easier to Update: Content seems to change the minute you hit publish, and with mobile websites you just need to make the changes and the next time your user visits your site they have the latest and greatest.  With an app, you are looking at pushing out updates and then balancing the number of updates you release so you aren’t negatively impacting your users.

I may lean towards responsive design over app development but as I mentioned, it really depends on what the goal is.  I’ve designed some really exciting and engaging learning that incorporated geo location pinging the learner when they are near something I wanted to push performance support out to, as well as social learning using cameras for pictures and videos to support collaboration and self-discovery.  I’ve also designed learning that I was able to quickly get out to learners with very low overhead and from the learner’s perspective, they would have thought they were using an app with the way it was built.  So, there may be an app for that, but there might also be mobile website for that, too.