Ok, so I just got an iPhone (yay me!) and now I’m totally obsessed with mobile interface design. I’ve been looking at a variety of mobile interfaces so I thought I’d share some here.
I started with libraries that offer mobile versions of their library website. I’m also collecting Mobile OPACs, databases and non-library interfaces – so I’ll share those another time. Thanks to Superpatron for gathering a list of mobile versions of library web sites that I used as my starting point.
I’ve noticed that many of the mobile versions of library websites are basically lists of links (a few allow searching) that have no applied style. This seems to work most of the time. However, on the iPhone at least, some were a little difficult to use. Most of the interfaces required that I zoom in to read, click links, enter a search, etc. Ideally a mobile interface should actually be designed specifically for mobile devices… and when possible, designed specifically for various types of mobile devices. Now, as a quick disclaimer, I’ve only looked at these on the iPhone so they may function and look completely different on other devices.
My favorite interface I found was from the Yale Medical Library because it has obviously been designed with the specific needs of the mobile user in mind. I didn’t have to zoom, the search box and each link is styled to be easily clickable and it fit my screen perfectly.
Here are screen shots of more or less all the ones I’ve found so far (I found a few more but they were fairly identical to another one I already had). Let me know if there are others I missed!
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