[Using Sakai] [Building Sakai] Some UX issues on Android smartphones

Fri Aug 20 14:38:21 PDT 2010

Hello
We deployed sakai for the iPhone, using the mobile skin, earlier this summer at the same time we upgraded to 2.6. To see main page, see http://coursework.stanford.edu/portal/pda, or visit http://coursework.stanford.edu with an iPhone (we built in detection so that any iPhone going to the main site would redirect to the skin). You can try adding /portal/pda to your sakai address to see what that skin looks like for you out of the box. I changed our CSS to bump up the font size and add the school colors; you can compare them against what comes out of the box at https://coursework.stanford.edu/portal/styles/portalstyles.css and https://coursework.stanford.edu/library/skin/default/pda.css

We published an article on our portal detailing caveats, such at not recommending it yet for Android or for creating content. Here's the direct link:
https://coursework.stanford.edu/access/content/group/UX%20Managed%20Content/gateway/spotlights/mobile_cw.html

Our med school was a driver for the mobile skin since most of their students have smart phones. At this time, we are recommending it only for viewing data on the iPhone, not entering data, because of the FCK issues. FCK issues are even worse for Android--you can't even load a page with an FCK editor on it without it freezing and needing to reboot.

I had entered three JIRAs to see if we could detect that an Android was coming to a announcements, forums, and schedule) and use simple text instead (SAK-18712, MSGCNTR-320, SAK-18713). However,  I believe SAK-18098 "Disable FCKEditor when using iPhone" would take care of that, if it was extended to include detection of Android. Don't know how to push that fix forward though (I don't know if if would work for Messages, but I assume so).

Another thing that I had thought might help is if we upgraded to CK Editor, from FCK editor, since it supports Safari 3.0+--that would mean the detection would need to get more fine grained--only disable fckeditor if the version of Safari (or Android's browser) can't support fck. However, I think iPhone 3s run something older than Safari 3.0, and not sure about iPads or iPhone 4s. Preliminary reports indicate that the iPad didn't have same FCK editor issues, so maybe they do have a different version. We don't yet have easy access to an iPad here so we can't confirm that (and am now full time Sakai 3)

Regarding the My Active Sites, the mobile skin might help with that. In fact, the med school here, which announced two weeks ago that all incoming students would get an iPad, wants us to redirect all iPads to our mobile site, http://coursework.stanford.edu/portal/pda for that reason, but we are still considering that. The real estate of an iPad is big enough to display our normal skin and if we redirect to mobile, we'd lose some of the links to spotlight articles and help.

Gonzalo may have some thoughts on this as well, so I've cc'ed him

Keli Amann
User Experience Specialist
Academic Computing Services, Stanford University

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mathieu Plourde" <mathieu at udel.edu>
To: "Dave Ross" <dave.ross at gmail.com>
Cc: "Sakai User List" <sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>, "Sakai Dev List" <sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org>, "Karen Avino" <kavino at udel.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 11:36:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] Some UX issues on Android smartphones

Neat workaround, but all the WYSIWYG buttons are completely dead on
the Android browser. Might be useful for our iOS users though. Thanks!

Mathieu

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Dave Ross <dave.ross at gmail.com> wrote:
> We're testing a bit with the iPad here - we've found a workaround for FCK ->
>
> Hit the "Paste as Plain Text" button - this brings up a dialog with a
> regular text box - which you can then enter information into and
> "paste" back into the editor.
>
> Not pretty, but it works.
>
> -Dave
>
> On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Mathieu Plourde <mathieu at udel.edu> wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I'm sending this message around to see if something is on its way in
>> order to support mobile OSs for Sakai. At Delaware, we have stumbled
>> upon two annoyances already without even digging.
>>
>> 1) The "My Active Sites" overlay shows up, but links are not
>> accessible. If you try to click somewhere to access a site in the
>> list, the whole box blinks, and nothing happens. The workaround is to
>> go to "My Workspace>Worksite Setup".
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/4909841675/
>>
>> 2) In Messages, there is no way to make the cursor show up in the text
>> box that uses FCK. All the WYSIWYG buttons are completely useless,
>> even the "Source" one. I did not check for other FCK boxes yet.
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/4910450840/in/photostream/
>>
>> I have seen that there is a sub-group that has been formed to tackle
>> mobile issues, but is it even active?
>> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/UX/Mobile+UX
>>
>> Should I turn these two issues into Jira tickets? And what's our
>> strategy as a community when it comes to making sure Sakai becomes
>> mobile-friendly?
>>
>> P.S.: We are currently running 2.6.1 and patches in production. My
>> phone runs Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) on Verizon.
>>
>> Mathieu
>> --
>> =================================
>>
>> Mathieu Plourde, MBA
>> Project Leader, LMS/Instructional Designer
>> IT-Client Support & Services
>> mathieu at udel.edu
>> Office: 302-831-4060
>>
>> =================================
>>
>> TOP LINKS:
>>
>> Technology Troubleshooting: http://www.udel.edu/help
>> Sakai at UD Support and Training: http://www.udel.edu/sakai/training
>>
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-- 
=================================

Mathieu Plourde, MBA
Project Leader, LMS/Instructional Designer
IT-Client Support & Services
mathieu at udel.edu
Office: 302-831-4060

=================================