Utility + Fun = Mobile
For the fan-on-the-go, the NCAA Final Four mobile site offers everything in thepalm of your hand
Navigate the the NCAA Final Four fan experience with an easy-to-use mobileguide, featuring live-updated events, right in the palm of your hand.
Tell the NCAA Final Four mobile guide where you want to go, and get there easilyand quickly.
The location-based NCAA Final Four mobile guide allows you to maximize your fanexperience on the go.
Simple, clean, easy to use — that's the NCAA Final Four mobile guide.
Let's face it: There's a lot going on in Houston this weekend.
While that might be the Understatement of the Year, it's the honest truth. And so much of it centers around the craziest games in NCAA men's basketball — the Final Four on Saturday and the championship game on Monday.
But how can the enthusiastic fan navigate the bevy of festivities and events surrounding the remaining tournament games?
Simple. Use the NCAA Final Four mobile guide.
(Go ahead and take a moment to bookmark it on your phone.)
The mobile guide includes a full schedule of events through Monday night's final game, in a simple, easy-to-find manner, as well as information about:
- Reliant Stadium
- Downtown
- City Guide of the best Houston has to offer in arts, entertainment, food, hotels, nightlife, shopping and unique aspects of the city
- Bracket Town, including directions on how to get to the George R. Brown Convention Center
- The Big Dance Concert Series
- Tailgate Tip Off
- Teams, including where to purchase merchandise
- Tickets and Fan shops
"We wanted to create a site so simple, someone like my mom -- who is not very technical -- would want to use it," said Matt Williams, president and co-founder of Mouth Watering Media, the digital media firm that conceived, created, and designed the mobile site for the NCAA Final Four. (Mouth Watering Media has a partnership interest in CultureMap.) "Our goal was to create something fast, easy, and to stick to the basics."
The team quickly found out that this was a more difficult task that expected. "Simple is hard," said Williams. "But you don't need to try to be cool — you need to be helpful."
Not that it's all substance and no suds. "Pretty doesn't have to be a sacrifice of speed and need," Williams said. "You just balance it with utility."
With graphical design assistance from ph design shop, Mouth Watering Media designed and developed what might be one of the most functional mobile guides you'll use for an event of this size.
But why a mobile site? Why not the popularly lauded app?
"You definitely get more buzz with an app," said Williams. "But when we considered the objective of getting fans what they needed as quickly as possible, an app wasn't as fast to build or as friendly to update in real-time during the event."
This user-experience-centric approach was one of the key factors that led the NCAA to select Mouth Watering Media's mobile model. "We also built a platform that allowed them to use it for other NCAA events as they desire," said Williams. "We built it so the NCAA can scale and populate the content management system themselves."
It doesn't hurt any when people like you, either. "The local organizing committee for the NCAA Final Four in Houston gave us a great recommendation," Williams said.
