Mobile University Apps for students - why are they worth using?

Mobile University Apps are gaining significant popularity nowadays. This solution helps student to organize their life, work and education better and easier. It makes multi level communication less complicated and relieves the administrative workers of the university. How to create functional mobile university apps for students and why are they worth using?

How to create the perfect college mobile app?

Creating a mobile university app is a complex, challenging and demanding process. This is how we developed Welcome to AGH - Mobile Application and Find UAK - the college apps for University of Technology and University of Agriculture in Krakow.

Firstly: the user

Mobile university apps should meet students’ needs. That is why before coding we have decided to visualize their problems and needs, based on which, we focused on:

• helping them find University’s building
• making contact with other students and lecturers easier
• describing the most interesting cultural events and historical attractions
• providing information about the University’s offer

Secondly: functionality and clarity 

Unclear interface of the college mobile app may result in not utilizing its most important features. Mobile university apps should not only meet the students’ needs, but also be designed in a clear and esthetical way. This may encourage students and administrative workers to use the app in everyday life.

Thirdly: optimization and the ease of maintaining

In order to effectively implement and use a system, it has to fulfill two criteria: reliability and the ease of use. In order to make it useful for every student, we have designed the “Welcome to AGH” mobile university app to best suit the mobile devices market. The app is available both on iOS and Android system. 

The administrator can modify the displayed content easily at any given moment. The option of adding new sections, posts and creating push notifications is also available.

Check out more information about cooperation with AGH in the article: What do Softnauts and AGH Space Systems have in common? Space collaboration
 

 

The mobile university apps - how to meet students needs?

Why are mobile apps the best possible solution? The main reason why this tool is worth developing and implementing is its ease and comfort of use. Smartphones are the main tool in everyday communication - more than 90% of young people between the ages of 16 and 25 uses them every day. In these circumstances, developing communications tools based on mobile solutions seems to be the most desired direction. 

Mobile university apps allow better optimizing for smartphones

Every University uses its own communication and organization system, which uses a dedicated website. However, these are often optimized for desktop internet browsers. As a result, the amount of options displayed in one single section is so numerous, that proper utilizing its functions with a smartphone is nearly impossible. The fact, that websites are often horizontally oriented makes the user experience even worse.

Mobile applications for university students are much easier to optimize for smartphones. It is because of the possibility of redesigning the interface, which results in more intuitive arrangement of particular sections and functions. 

College mobile applications often allow the administrators to modify sections, post and the displayed content in such a way, that there is no need to rebuild the whole user interface.

Successful solutions for mobile applications are our daily bread. Check out Softnauts' offer in this area!

All the functionalities in one place

Universities’ communicating and management systems are often divided in a plenty of subsystems performing specific functions. With use of a smartphone, logging into every function individually on different tabs in the internet browser is significantly harder, than with use of the desktop solutions. Well-designed university mobile apps allow incorporating a plenty of functionalities in one place. What should they include?

The university notification system

In contrast to the websites, university mobile applications can be used to receive the important notifications all the time. With use of the push notifications, college mobile apps increase the chances of opening the important message immediately after sending it by the administrator.

This function is useful especially for students of technical universities and on the degrees related to chemistry, who work with hazardous substances every day. In case of an emergency, they will immediately receive an information from a reliable source.

The standardized university email system

Standardized system of university’s email in the mobile university application will make using other third-party software unnecessary. Integrating the college app and university email system will minimalism the risk of missing some significant messages.

Mobile university applications - clear and functional time schedule

Organizing a whole day of studying and working can be exhausting. Incorporating a system of push reminders into a college application will be significantly helpful. The time schedule may be integrated with the system of the push notifications, which will remind students about classes in advance. 

A navigation system could also be a useful tool. The system could show not only the location of a building, but also the placement of the exact lecture hall on the building’s map. It might be featured with a clear infographic and short description. 

The hall 2.304 is placed on the second floor, in the west section of the building on the right-hand side from the main entrance.

Culture and entertainment

Apart from the universities and career development opportunities, big cities may also provide students much entertainment. There are a plenty of cultural events, concerts to attend and lots of historical monuments to be seen. College mobile apps may inform students about the attractions and possible activities, what will result in better accommodating in a new place.

 

 

Saving the administration’s workers time

Every students’ problem need an individual approach. However, it often happens that most of the questions and problems related to a certain topic repeat themselves. In that case, the best solution is to design a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section. It may result in avoiding receiving calls and emails with repetitive questions. 

Both submitting applications and proposals and receiving administrative decisions are time-consuming procedures. The best solution to this problem is a possibility of completing the formalities with use of the mobile university application. In order to protect students’ personal data and other sensitive information, the actions may be authorized with using an One-Time authorization code or the mobile banking application. 
 

Check also our implementation: Juwenalia UEK - an app for a great social event