7. Designing for Mobiles Nothing is more fun than seeing your Web page (or application) nestled nicely into a teeny tiny handheld screen; and nothing is more excruciatingly horrendous than trying to figure out how to get it there. Heidi Pollok (WebMonkey)
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10. Page design Headers – The terminology & the spelling on the header should be the exact same as on the link which led to the page. Sub-headers – If subheaders are used they need to be differentiated from content and menu items. Separation – If a page contains of a number of rows with just plain text and they are followed by a hyper link, separate the static field from the interactive area with a single dashed line. Fonts – For pages to be scan able, fonts should be clear. Avoid over decoration of fonts – only using decoration when attention is needed. Scrolling – Scroll only when necessary, as the user might not scroll if not prompted and might miss information at the bottom of the page. Clutter – Always try to keep the elements on a page as minimum as possible. The information available should not be too much for the user to process. Using a phone to surf the Internet means taking a huge leap away from the fixation with looks.
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12. Use of the keypad Less is more – Users should not be forced to enter information in more than one field. Fields that can be should be drop downs or selection lists. To clear or not to clear – do not let the user clear the input fields herself if performing a new function i.e. new search. The system should clear the fields. And if the screen is a modification of the previous screen i.e. in case of errors – the system should remember the text put in by the user in the next screen also. Signing in – A user should be automatically signed in when possible. URLs – Should be fairly short. Search criteria – While entering search criteria, the system should support common abbreviations as far as possible. Numeric keys – The natural way of interaction with a phone is numeric so fields should be numeric if they can and use of the keypad when navigating through a particularly long page should be supported. Text input is difficult on a mobile phone considering the user relies on a set of numeric keys when writing.
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