Smartphone Accessibility Of The ALS Online Genetics Database

Background: The ALS Online Database, (ALSoD) website http://alsod.iop.kcl.ac.uk, holds mutation, geographical and phenotype data on 104 genes, linking to bioinformatics resources, publications and tools for analysis. It is available free to access without registration. On average, there are 300 unique visitors daily from any of 140 countries. To enable access from a smartphone, we developed a mobile friendly version of the website and smartphone app. Methods: We identified the most frequently viewed pages using Google Analytics and our in-house analytic monitoring. For these, we optimized the content layout of the screen, reduced image sizes, and summarized available information. We used the .NET framework mobile detection property (HttpRequest.IsMobileDevice in the Request.Browser object in conjunction with HttpRequest.UserAgent) which returns a true value if the browser is a recognized mobile device. For app development, we used the Eclipse integrated development environment with Android plug-ins. We wrapped the mobile website version with the WebView object in Android. Simulators were downloaded to test and debug the applications. Results: The website automatically detects access from a mobile phone and redirects pages to fit the smaller screen. Because the amount of data stored on ALSoD is very large, the available information for display using smartphone access is deliberately restricted to improve usability. The smartphone app is currently available on Blackberry and Android devices and will shortly be available on iPhone as well. Conclusions: We have developed the ALSoD website further, allowing access through smartphones and tablets, either through the website or directly through a mobile app, making genetic data stored on the database readily accessible to researchers and patients across multiple devices. Also, the increased use of the website due to its mobile-friendliness has been analysed using google analytics tool showing that more researchers are using mobile devices to enhance their research work globally. []