Higher education websites, like many of our institutions themselves, are often large and decentralized, complicating the task of becoming mobile-friendly. At the University of Vermont we are taking an economical and sustainable approach to developing our mobile efforts. We've created an iPhone app, dedicated mobile site, and responsive design templates that allow us to publish web content designed specifically to look and function great on mobile devices increasing website mobile traffic and improving interactions with both current and prospective students. Our strategy was designed to minimize the need to create any additional content by leveraging existing content and feeds from the website. By using an open-source mobile platform called Kurogo and our own homegrown CMS we avoided additional ongoing maintenance costs and decreased web development time. Both environments are customizable and flexible allowing us to easily add content and alter design over time. Moving forward, this strategy should allow our community to eventually get all the information they need in a format completely optimized for the size and functionality of their device.

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Small investment, big profits
Tatjana Salcedo, University of Vermont

2. * In 2012, the US saw a 55% increase in smartphone
subscriptions to make for 98 million smartphone
subscribers, representing nearly 42% of all US
mobile users (comScore 2012)
* 52% of college-bound high school students have
viewed a school’s Web site on a mobile device
(Noel-Levitz 2012)
* 61% of customers who visit a mobile unfriendly site
are likely to go to a competitor’s site (Karim
Temsamani at IABALM 2012 via IAB)
*

3. * Only university in the state of Vermont,
founded in 1791
* Located in the city of Burlington
* Total enrollment: 13,488
* Undergraduate students: 10,459
* Seven undergraduate schools and colleges,
offering 101 bachelor's programs
* In-state students comprise 33% of student body
*

4. * Increasing quality and reputation of academics
* Attracting out-of-state and international
students
* Increasing retention and 4-year graduation
rates
* Portraying the city of Burlington
* Building a diverse university community
* Improving institutional efficacy
*

5. * Small web team reporting to University
Communications
* An outdated homegrown CMS
* Decentralized content
* Multiple portals and platforms
* Limited web programming resources
* No dedicated budget for software or services
* Maintaining the UVM brand
*

6. * Measuring traffic comes from mobile devices
* Examining off-site traffic
* Looking at mobile behavior and trends
* Identifying unique needs of mobile users
* Reviewing best practices in higher education
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7. 9.00%
8.00%
7.00%
6.00%
5.00%
4.00%
3.00%
2.00%
1.00%
0.00%
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8. 05:46
05:02
04:19
03:36
02:53
02:10 All traffic
01:26 Mobile traffic
00:43
00:00
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9. 1. Undergraduate admissions
2. List of programs and degrees
3. Varsity athletics
4. Visiting the institution
5. News
6. Student life pages
7. Tuition and costs
8. Directory
*

10. * Use of mobile devices is growing rapidly
* Mobile use in greater off-campus, especially for
admissions prospects
* Mobile users are generally interested in the
same content as non-mobile users
* Mobile users spend less time on the
site, however average time on site is increasing
*

11. * Mobile applications
* Dedicated mobile websites
* Responsive web design
*

12. "It was a great way to
experience the
development
process, working with
other people, one of
the best things that I've
*
done in school so far.”
– Chris Tucci, ‘11

14. * Avoid content duplication
* Support smart phones and feature phones
* Prospective student focused
* Mobile-friendly user interface
* Customizable visually and functionally
* Extendable
* Compatible in our IT environment
* Free
*

15. * Open source platform
* Supports wide variety of devices
* Easily customized
* Data feeds: RSS, iCal, KML, LDAP…
* YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr
* HTML content
* Custom XML content
* Serves multiple mobile device types
*

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22. * Traffic has doubled on 1. Photos
m.uvm.edu since launch 2. Courses
* Mobile UVM attracts about 3. Calendar
20-25% of mobile users or
about 100 page views per 4. Admissions
day 5. Directory
* Time on site increasing
*

24. *

25. * Mobile first approach
* Placing element
blocks in a small
format
* Identifying essential
content
*

26. * Placing branding and
graphic elements
* Applying progressive
enhancement
* Exploring functional
features
* Noticing usability
issues
*

27. * Building HTML templates for our content
management system
* Identifying problematic content and controls
* Setting priorities for implementation
* Converting content
* Responsive images
* HTML5 video
* Converting tables
* Using HTML5 semantic markup
*

28. * Taking a mobile first approach to content
development
* Evaluating mobile and non-mobile traffic
* Performing usability tests across multiple
devices
* Updating and developing mobile applications
* Adding additional content and sites to the
dedicated mobile site
* Porting UVM Mobile to mobile applications
*

29. * Working with other web
solutions, portals, hosted applications
* Intelligent distributed content development
* Finding best solutions for tables, forms, long
lists of links, multimedia
* Optimizing speed and performance
* It’s even more about the content
*

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