Timeframe: Spring 2011
For: The Career Center, University of Michigan
Role: Developer
Skills: HTML, CSS, jQuery, jQuery Mobile
An increase in users accessing The Career Center website via mobile devices prompted me to evaluate the site’s mobile accessibility, and consider the need for the creation of a mobile-friendly version.
While there was much discussion around iPhone/Android applications at the time, I decided a mobile website was the best option for our needs due to the shorter development time, and because it would not tie us to a single device. I wanted to take advantage of a mobile web development framework, and ultimately settled on jQuery Mobile. The framework offers extensive cross-platform/cross-device support, and has the backing of the robust jQuery community.
Coding took place mostly during my spare time over a weekend, with a focus on implementing a handful of the key tasks/pages that mobile users would be most interested in accessing via our website.