Data Collection in the Palm of your Hand: A Case Study

Mobile computing devices, which are commonly known as either personal digital assistants (PDA) or personal information managers (PIM), are an emerging technology that has the potential to be very useful in specific areas of computing.  One area in which mobile computing devices are gaining favor is in data collection, especially in places where larger computers are impractical.  While the use of these devices as a data collection tool is not a new idea (see Drury, 1987), it has been a bit slow to take off.  However, recent advances in this area of technology have allowed the gap in functionality between mobile computing devices and personal computers to be closed to such an extent that these devices may be considered to be as functional in many ways as a laptop or palmtop computer for collecting data.  In fact, the conversion of paper and pencil forms such as surveys, questionnaires, and assessments to these devices may be considered a next logical step in the use of mobile computing devices.

Spain, Kelly and Chad Phipps. Usability News (2000). Articles>Usability>Workflow>PDA

Designing Online Help for Pocket PCs

Advances in technology in the last ten years have created an emerging category of portable online computers (Pocket PCs or PPCs) that offer a wide range of product features comparable to Personal Computers (PCs). Improvements in PPC hardware specifications and the growing numbers of compatible software applications are resulting in an increased (and multi-faceted) user base. Increasing technical capabilities, advanced product features, and a diversified user base are creating new challenges to design online Help systems that can satisfy user needs and requirements effectively.

Natarajan, Prashant. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Documentation>Help>PDA

Designing Web Sites for PDAs

Imagine that you're riding on the local urban underground railway. It's the morning commute, and the train is packed. The stranger next to you flips methodically through the Times Tribune Chronicle in a way that lands half of the paper in your lap. You want to teach this space invader a lesson. So you tear the paper from her grasp, ball it into a mass, and squeeze with the transformative might of Superman until the lump is shaped into a perfectly readable, rectangular object that can be held comfortably in one hand. This is similar to the challenge of designing content for the PalmPilot. I came upon this analogy while designing a Wired News mini-site for the PalmPilot's AvantGo browser. During the project, I learned some fundamental guidelines that should be kept in mind when designing Web content for a PDA audience, which I'll share over the next few pages. But first I want to put in a word about the importance of the Web to the PDA.

Stowell, Carter. Webmonkey (1999). Design>Web Design>Wireless Web>PDA

The Effects of Perceptual Grouping on Text Entry Performance

One of the primary challenges confronting designers of mobile computing devices is the issue of efficient text entry. One potential solution is to group multiple letters onto single keys, similar to the T9 keyboard currently used on telephones. Two experiments examined the effects of perceptual grouping on soft keyboard transcription rates. Results from Experiment 1 showed significantly slower transcription rates for QWERTY keyboards with grouped keys. Results from Experiment 2 showed various levels of perceptual interference due to the different Gestalt grouping effects. These results indicate that perceptual grouping can negatively affect text entry performance, and placing multiple letters onto single keys reduces the speed at which users can transcribe words.

Hamblin, Christopher J., Michael Bohan and Alex Chaparro. Usability News (2004). Design>Usability>Human Computer Interaction>PDA

Handheld Devices and the Flow of Functionality

Handheld devices and small appliances pose a unique challenge to the interface designer. The blur between user interface and functionality (interface vs. interaction) is even more pronounced in these environments. The interface of any small device is extremely important; yet, more than ever, the necessity to build in exactly (and only) what is required by the user is extremely important!

Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>User Interface>Workflow>PDA

Improving Web Interaction on Small Displays

Soon many people will retrieve information from the Web using handheld, palmsized or even smaller computers. Although these computers have dramatically increased in sophistication, their display size is – and will remain – much smaller than their conventional, desktop counterparts. Currently, browsers for these devices present web pages without taking account of the very different display capabilities. As part of a collaborative project with Reuters, we carried out a study into the usability impact of small displays for retrieval tasks. Users of the small screen were 50% less effective in completing tasks than the large screen subjects. Small screen users used a very substantial number of scroll activities in attempting to complete the tasks. Our study also provided us with interesting insights into the shifts in approach users seem to make when using a small screen device for retrieval.

Jones, Matt, Gary Marsden, Norliza Mohd-Nasir, Kevin Boone and George Buchanan. Eighth International WWW Conference (1999). Design>Web Design>Wireless Web>PDA

Mobile Devices Will Soon Be Useful

New mobile devices and services are more realistic and useful than last year's models, and will likely expand mobile device adoption. Design usability and simplicity are key, particularly for the automotive market where complexity can be dangerous.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Articles>Usability>Technology>PDA

Mobile Devices: One Generation From Useful

New mobile devices show a huge improvement over previous generations, but they're still not good enough to score a real win. To get there, we need both PC-integrated applications and specialized mobile services rather than repurposed website content.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Technology>PDA

Pocket-Sized Design: Taking Your Website to the Small Screen

Among the many websites that are out there, few are standards-compliant. Among those few, only a handful sport style sheets adjusted to the needs of handheld devices. Of those which do offer styling for handhelds, not all will fit the smallest, lowest-resolution screens without presenting the user with the ultimate handheld horror: namely, horizontal scrolling.

Etemad, Elika and Jorunn D. Newth. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS>PDA

Portable Devices Can Cause Usability Problems

Take a moment and think about the various portable Internet devices available. You see everything from wireless hand held devices, to web-enabled pagers, to cellular phones with email access. The list goes on and on. Every day you can scan the technology headlines and read about several new Internet technologies being announced. Think about the nature of these portable Internet devices: they probably are not very usable.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (1999). Articles>Usability>Online>PDA

The Usability of the Palm Vx

I recently purchased an 'old' Palm Vx of off eBay.com. Let me tell you, I couldn't be happier with it, except maybe if it had a color screen and the resolution were a little bit higher. It has a couple usability flaws from the original Palm V model, but nothing that dramatically decreases the user experience.

Rhodes, Matt. WebWord (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>PDA

Users with Small Screens: Less than 640 x 480

In recent years, it becomes popular for people to use some devices with small and low resolution screen to access the information on the Internet. For example, in Finland, 60% people use mobile phones to connect to the Internet. Other products include personal digital assistants (PDA), WebTV and embedded web browsers inside automobiles. Some of them like PDAs are popular and play an important role in some people's daily life. Service providers have already started to provide information such as news, traffic situation, online maps and entertainment guides to users through these devices. The screen size of these devices is generally small. WebTV is 544 x 372; hand-held PCs is around 240 x 320 and popular palm-sized PDA is about 160 x 160. Products like mobile phones can be as low as 48 x 48. The World Wide Web (WWW) contains a huge amount of pages for people to find their useful material. However, most of these pages are designed to be displayed by computers with large and high resolution screens. When users with small and low resolution screens see these pages, many problems occurs, making the Web surfing experience very unsatisfactory. Thus, new techniques and guidelines are needed to design web pages under the constraints of small display. The next section addresses the problem of web surfing by small screen. Moreover, we will discuss the goal of web page design for small screen.

Chu, Kelvin Kam Wing. Universal Usability (2001). Design>Web Design>Wireless Web>PDA

Using Handhelds in the Technical Communication Classroom  

A report on the use of pocket PCs in a document design course and a graduate course researching the emerging technology of handhelds.

Smith, Elizabeth Overman 'Betsy'. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Education>TC>PDA

Visualización Espacialmente Consciente

Las pantallas de los ordenadores son como una ventana al ciberespacio, a menudo demasiado pequeñas y limitadas. Los dispositivos capaces de localizarse en el espacio personal del usuario ofrecen una ventana a espacios virtuales 3D en el que la combinación de movimiento e interacción abre nuevas posibilidades de visualización.

Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). (Spanish) Design>User Interface>Operating Systems>PDA

Web Design Issues When Searching for Information in a Small Screen Display  

In this paper, we report preliminary findings from an experimental study in which twenty-eight users answered questions by performing strategic information searches on web pages. Pages, which varied in length from 100 to 850 words, were displayed on either a standard, desktop monitor (full-sized) or a palm handheld interface (small-screen). Overall, users took more time to perform the tasks on the small screen interface, with the break in efficacy appearing between 225 and 350 word-lengths. Finally, contrary to our hypothesis, participants were similarly accurate across conditions.

Kim, Loel and Michael J. Albers. ACM SIGDOC (2001). Presentations>Web Design>Wireless Web>PDA

When Management Becomes Personal: An Activity-Theoretic Analysis of Palm™ Technologies

Palm Technologies, a group of personal digital assistants or PDAs developed in the early 90s, have rapidly embedded themselves into the daily lives of users. The aim of this chapter is to provide an activity theoretic account of PDAs as technologies of text. Three questions are pursued: Out of what cultural history did Palm Technologies emerge? What motivated users to adopt Palm Technologies? How did Palm Technologies become incorporated into the activity patterns of everyday life? The evidence presented suggests that Palm Technologies work by moving systematic management techniques originally developed for organizations into the personal sphere. When systematic management becomes personal, task management separates from the task itself, leading to a fragmentation of motive that may challenge some of the basic assumptions of activity theory. This fragmentation is mediated through the space-time affordances of textualization and concurrent linearization of time. Like the systematic management of organizations before it, such textual affordances may become subject to surveillance and manipulation - by ourselves if not by others. All of this suggests that some interesting issues will arise as PDA technologies attempt to move outside of their managerial base and into the domestic sphere, in effect databasing our lives.

Geisler, Cheryl. WAC Clearinghouse (2002). Design>User Interface>Theory>PDA