Hi Pat,

 

We were hoping to see some more feedback come in on this topic from other people before adding our own thoughts, but perhaps we can get this discussion moved along.

 

It's difficult to make comparisons to other websites because very few other sites provide the types of functionality that's being delivered by MBSportsWeb.  So the influence of "other sites" on our planning exists, but is minimal.

 

We've been delivering a mobile-optimized version of the site for over 7 years now, which was well ahead of the mobile browsing trend.  Nowadays, across the network of MBSportsWeb sites we see an average of 35% of all traffic via mobile devices.  With well over 100K visitors per day, it's certainly a segment of the audience that we're paying close attention to.

 

The current mobile version of the site has many advantages - it's a much more lightweight version of the site so it won't consume anywhere close to the same amount of data plan than the full version.  Even for those fortunate to have unlimited data plans, the fact that the physical footprint of the mobile site is smaller means that the site loads faster.  While it's true that part of this smaller footprint is delivering less / different information than what's available on the full site, in most cases all the information is still available (just differently).

 

The internal mechanics of how the site is detecting mobile devices currently, and allowing the end-user to override that setting, is not trivial.  While nothing's impossible, if an update to the site is somewhat difficult to accomplish we would expect that it's impact is significant.  At this point, we don't have a majority of people who are asking for this option to be available.  So, at this point, we are not planning to make this available.

 

That said, we are much more interested in finding out where & why the current mobile version of the site is falling short.  The request to view the full site on a mobile device wouldn't be happening if the mobile site was satisfying all the needs / wants of the visitors.  We think making improvements to the mobile site are likely to be easier to accomplish, and would be a much better long-term solution than delivering the full site to a screen too small to make it usable.

 

So please keep this discussion going by letting us know specifically where the mobile site is falling short, and we'd be happy to take a look at making those improvements.

 

Shaun

 

From my experience with the mobile site for phones I would like to see an expanded calendar option.  Sometimes it could be tedious advancing 3 days at a time when trying to find information on a certain date. 

 

As an website administrator I would like the see the option of editing ice schedules on my ipad.  The site shows a full site on an ipad but editing is not possible

I would be happy if online forms could be submitted by a mobile device.  They work from ipad but not from phone.

Understand the rational for not implementing the option to view the full site. Basically it's a lot of work and not enough reward or demand. 

 

An improvement to the mobile site that allows us to see more of the calendar would be very welcome. 

 

For team web masters it would be handy to be able to add games - for example when you are at a tournament and just made it through to the semi finals. You can not add a game via the mobile site. Also the ability to change game information via the mobile site would be good. Currently Team web masters can update the score but would laos be good to be able to make changes to the game via the mobile site. Again particularly useful with tournaments when a team drops out and we have to make some lat minute changes. 

 

 

 

 

 

@Brad, @Shannon, @Mike, @Anthony, @Shaun

 

All great ideas folks, please keep them coming.

Hi Shaun,

 

I know in another thread you had mentioned there was some stuff coming.  Is there anything that you can provide as far as an update and possible timelines?  Will mobile options be available for the upcoming season?

Thanks,

Shaun

BHRA

I would also like to see the ability for Officials to be able to accept / deny games in the mobile site.  Many of our officials are using mobile devices and prefer to do so but find it difficult to accept games on the mobile version as it only shows 3 days on the calendar.

I agree that I would like to schedule on my ipad

 

Dianna

I'm one of the few Blackberry users left but I am able to go into the settings and then developer mode and change the Blackberry browser settings so that all sites open in full browser mode. It's a handy work around when I need to make a quick change while on the go. 

I have scenarios where a team goes to a tournament and the later games in the schedule depends on how they did in the initial round robin games.  It would be nice to be able to add games from your smartphone to the team tournament page while in the rink when you know when your next game will be.

Hi folks,

 

Please keep this conversation going here:

 

Looking forward to more great feedback on that thread.

 

Shaun