How to Design Web Pages for PDAs

A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a device that functions as a logbook to keep track of your records, appointments and data. A popular PDA device is the Palm Pilot, which allows its users to access the Internet. Designing web sites for PDA browsers are very specialized due to the nature of their tiny screens and limited browsing potential. Just following these simple steps will help you design a PDA-friendly web page.

Step 1

Choose a web service to host your content.

Step 2

Keep the pictures at a minimum in size, quality and quantity. Pictures of 150-by-150 pixels are the largest they should be, and they should also be kept within 500 kb file sizes or less. In addition, having too many pictures will slow the load time of your PDA website.

Step 3

Have simple navigation for your web page. Avoid using advanced techniques such as frames because the screen is too small to fit that properly. A scroll-down page should be just fine for a PDA browser, and multiple links to navigate to other pages will help.

Step 4

Add only relevant and concise information to your website. The less text or pictures the PDA visitor has to scroll through for each page, the faster the website loads and the easier it becomes to access. Simplicity and quality information are the keys here.

Step 5

Embed access keys within the text body of each page. These are link-enabled keywords that, when clicked, will navigate visitors to the proper page. For example, if you have an generalized intro page about dieting that mentions Atkins, and Atkins happens to be an access key, visitors who click on it will navigate to another page giving more specific information on the Atkins diet.

Step 6

Arrange your website content so that the information is on the top of the page. Leave navigation links to the bottom of the page, because PDA visitors are more concerned about getting the right information immediately, rather than scrolling around the site to get what they need.

Tips

• If you already have a high-end, full-functioning web site, add a link to the top of your web page directing people to your PDA-friendly version. You will want to redirect PDA viewers to the right website as soon as possible without them having to load up the rest of the page to find the link.

About the Author

Zeus Tyrone Mendoza is an award-winning and accomplished freelance writer from California. Mendoza has contributed works published in "Kerygma" magazine, "Philippine Star Newspaper," and the monthly newsletter for the world renowned GK Community Development Foundation. Mendoza holds a B.A. in English creative writing from California State University, Northridge.