[IxDA Discuss] Repurposing the UI for different screen sizes

[Barbara Ballard]

On 6/14/07, oliver green <oliverhci at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can anyone point me to seminal work been done in the area of
> automatic/semi-automatic repurposing of the UI for different screen sizes.
> e.g. from desktop to mobile? Maybe I am using the wrong keywords for the
> search, but I cant seem to find useful hits.
>

I can't point to academic work, but I do have extensive experience
with folks trying this on a commercial basis, starting circa 1999.
Imagine sitting in as the user experience person at a US wireless
carrier, with company pitch after company pitch on the topic.

So far, I haven't seen anything that works well.  Most of the
companies are no longer in business. Heck, I think even Google got out
of the business. So the only real reformatting currently going on is
done by the likes of Opera, Openwave, and Palm.

Problems arise with such issues as:
- which links are site navigation?
- which links are global navigation?
- is the navigation currently critical?
- what is the main part of the page?
- how much content should be displayed?
- what happens when the content exceeds the data size containable by the phone?
- what to do with Javascript, Flash, etc.?
- how does the device user interface change how the page is used?

Then there's the extra pesky problem:  does the user have the same
goals in a cafe, meeting, train, or bus stop as she does at a desk or
with a laptop?

-- 
Barbara Ballard
barbara at littlespringsdesign.com 1-785-838-3003