COOPER, Iowa, July 21, 2010 – Communications on and about the Raccoon River Valley Trail is taking another step forward with the launch — effective immediately — of our new Website for cell phones and other mobile applications, which you can access at www.rrvt.org.  It’s like a transportable partner to our full Internet site www.raccoonrivervalleytrail.org.

“We’ve been working on this for several months now, trying to make it as easily usable as possible on all the different kinds of cell phones that have Internet connectivity,” said Chuck Offenburger, of Cooper, a member of the board of directors of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association and the lead writer on the RRVT’s sites on the Internet. “We’ve got more fine tuning to do on the mobile site, but we’ve got it to a point where we want to go ahead and make it public, and start getting feedback from the users of the site.”

Doing the technical work on the mobile application are Lori and Chris Brocka, who are partners in G.Rafics, Inc., a company in Adel that does Website design, building and hosting, as well as some online publishing.  G.Rafics has been the RRVT Association’s Web manager since late in 2007, and did the design and development of the www.raccoonrivervalleytrail.org site, activating it in February 2008.

Chris Brocka started the company 23 years ago as a graphic design firm, producing logos, design for print publications and signage.  Eventually he also began designing “intra-company” Websites for large banking institutions.  Then Lori Brocka became more involved as a tech person for the growing design company.  In recent years, when the roll-out of high-speed Internet service helped make Websites an essential tool for nearly all businesses, the Brockas have taken on more and more clients.

The couple was not surprised early this year, when the RRVT Associatioin asked if G.Rafics would go to work on a mobile Web application that would be more user-friendly on cell phones.

“We’ve seen some studies recently that, worldwide, 62 percent of the people who are accessing the Internet are doing that from a mobile device,” Lori Brocka said.  “So now, companies are wanting to go one of two ways with their sites.  They either want to redesign their full Websites so they’re more easily downloadable on mobile applications, or they are wanting separate sites created that are specifically for mobile applications.”

The RRVT Association chose the latter course, so the organization will have its full site accessible on normal computers, and the new mobile application available on cell phones.  You’ll notice that the mobile application will have less content and fewer photographs.   Our goal is to make the information on that mobile application be the kind of quick-hitting facts that you want if you are out riding your bicycle, walking or running on the RRVT.  That information includes the current weather in all the trail towns, news bulletins (especially about trail conditions), special events happening in the communities or businesses along the trail, contact information for medical or law enforcement help, and maps.

“When you are designing a Website specifically for use on cell phones or other mobile devices, there’s a huge challenge because there are significant differences in what one kind of phone can do compared to another kind,” Lori Brocka said.  “So there’s a difference in what the site looks like on, say, a BlackBerry from the way it looks on an iPhone or Motorola Q Phone.  We’ve tried to make it look at least acceptable on all kinds of phones.  And now that we’ve activated it, we’ll start refining it so it works better for everybody.”

That’s where we’re counting on you readers here.

“One thing we’ve learned is that trail users tend to be very tech-savvy people,” Lori Brocka said.  “We’re hoping the RRVT site users will spend some time trying out the new site on their phones, and then give us their feedback and suggestions.”

You can direct that to chuck@Offenburger.com and to lori@graficsinc.com.

We will appreciate your input and assistance!