Technical Approach

The MACON interface has been developed by adapting MIT’s mobile web project which is an open source software and taking inspiration from NCSU mobile web project. We tweaked the code and user interface elements to meet our requirements and have also enhanced WURFL (the API) to implement three device model (and auto-detection function for mobile devices). During the project our main focus has been on refining and improving the search interface. The OU Library uses Ebsco Discovery Service (EDS) to offer a one stop search solution to its users. The EDS API enabled us to integrate the search results into the OU Library mobile website which provides efficient response for search results and avoids the confusion students can experience when they start a search on the library website and are presented with results in a different interface. We have aimed to provide a simpler (but effective) search experience for our mobile users and they can expand search results fields should they wish to see full abstract (the dynamic expand function to view abstracts has been implemented using JQuery)