FAQ - Tips – How to use "as an app"

February 5th 2020 the AOSR went live with a completely new user interface. As the new user interface (and IT solution) will allow for expansion and better integration with other content produced by the AO, this is a major milestone for the team.

All content was imported to the new system word-by-word and nothing is removed. However, there are some fundamental differences in how the content is presented.

• Shortcuts were removed to declutter the navigation and replaced by a powerful search function.
• Preparation, approach, redfix, and aftercare is combined into one treatment page
• The skeleton navigation has been optimized for mobile screens and made easier to expand to new subjects

Below you will find the answers to some frequently asked questions as well as some tip on how to improve your AO Surgery Reference experience.

You can either download the app that was released June 2020 or you can save a shortcut to your home screen. 

Here is a step-by-step description of how to save to home screen both for Android and iPhone.

This procedure will also work on tablets.

For some users the headers and headlines take a large part of the screen.

To improve this, you may change the zoom level of your browser. Exactly how you do this will depend on your browser and you should be able to find instructions specific to your browser online.

For Google Chrome (used by most of our users) the following should work:

PC: hold down Ctrl and scroll up or down to change the zoom level (alternatively Ctrl and + or -)

Mac: hold down Command and scroll up or down to change the zoom level (alternatively Command and + or -)

There are two ways to get more screen space on an apple mobile device, and the effects are cumulative.

The first option is to change the zoom level of the browser.

1. Open the AO Surgery Reference with Safari.
2. On the top left in the address bar click "AA".
3. Set the zoom level to 85% by tapping the small A on the left. This reduces the size of all the AO Surgery Reference pages, but they should still be well readable.

The second option is to download or make an "App" as described above. This will remove the browsers navigation bars on the top, and the bottom. (If you want to change the zoom level in addition, you'll have to open site separately in Safari and it there).

To the right you can see iPhone 7 screen shots with no adaptations (left) compared to one where an "app" like shortcut is used as well as an 85% zoom level (right).

There are two ways to get more screen space on an android mobile device, and the effects are cumulative.

The first and easiest option is to download or make an "App" as described above. This will remove the browsers navigation bars on the top, and the bottom.

To the left you can see screenshots of a mobile phone with Android Version 9.1.0 using a standard browser (left) compared to one where an "app" like shortcut has been used (right).

The second option is to change the display settings on your device. Keep in mind that this change has an impact in all applications on your phone.

1. Go to your mobile settings on your home screen.
2. Click on "Display" and chose the menu "Text and display size".
3. Reduce the Text and Display size to your preferences

Specific options may also exist for specific mobile browser. For Google Chrome it is only possible, if you previously increased the font size in your browser.

1. Open the AO Surgery Reference with Google Chrome.
2. Open the settings of Google Chrome (three dots in the right corner on the top)
3. Click on "Settings" and chose "Accessibility"
4. Change the percentage in "Text scaling" to at least 100%

In our old navigation, tests showed that users got lost navigating between preparation, approach, redfix, and aftercare.

To address this, we combined everything into one page. The patient preparation, relevant approaches (including the discussion of when to use which approach), and aftercare, is now included in the procedure itself.

However, sometimes you just want to find a specific approach without going through the navigation. This can easily be achieved using search.

Just tap the search icon, and then use the filters (checkboxes) to create your own overviews of approaches, preparations, and procedures.

For approaches to the knee: tick the following boxes Orthopedic Trauma - Ault trauma - Distal femur and Proximal Tibia - Approaches.

The technology we are using on the diagnosis page is quite new and Google Translate does not deal with it yet. We had to block this page from being translated in order to work at all. As soon as Google can translate it, we'll turn it back on.

As we are using larger images than before, it is no longer necessary with an enlarged image. To simplify the user interface, we decided to remove it.

It is planned to introduce a functionality allowing you to download extra large images to use in your presentation.

You can provide feedback to the AO Surgery Reference team using the feature upvote function.

If you leave your e-mail in the feedback process, we may contact you directly in order to better understand your suggestion or issue.