ACM TechNews

On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff

New York Times (07/13/08) Markoff, John

The introduction of the Apple iPhone has sparked a rush to re-format Web sites to accommodate the device's small screen, and this trend demonstrates that site designers can focus the user's attention and deliver pertinent data free of clutter by streamlining the site interface to its most basic functions. "By having fewer items to scan for on a small display, users can find what they want more quickly and can be more confident that they have made the right choice," notes Ben Shneiderman, founder of the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Library. "If you just put the juicy stuff up there it works better." The iPhone is currently the best handheld for viewing the Web thanks to its software design and higher screen resolution. The original iPhone could be used as a window onto a full-size newspaper Web page, but the device has shifted away from the window metaphor and toward customized vertical orientation, allowing users to scroll up and down rather than sideways to view information. Donald Norman with the Nielsen Norman Group says the iPhone is very useful for Web sites that do not require a great deal of searching.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/technology/13stream.html

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