I've previously shown WAP pages, and the problems
that can be caused by them. The future though for mobile devices is towards PDA
screens. A good example of this is the HP IPAQ, which has a screen size of around
240 by 340 pixels. You must thus design for a width of around 200 pixels. One
thing that is different about PDAs is that users do not normally mind using the
horizontal scroll bar to move the page from left to right. This differs from normal
desktop browsers in which users do not like to use the horizontal scroll. The
page on the left hand side has been taken from the main CNDS page. I've stripped
out some of the text, and scaled the table size down to 200 pixels. I've also
tried to integrate the WWW links into the text. If you want to view the page you
can click here [PDA WWW page]. You
should notice from the above WWW page that the page is justified to the left,
and not centred, as this page. This is because the user should not have to scroll
left and right. A move to the right is acceptable, but both ways can confuse the
user, especially if the main text of the page does not appear initially in the
viewer window. Mobile networks and mobile devies are the future, so make
sure that you make some provision for them! | 