Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

When we ask clients if design for PDAs is a concern, the common answer is no. Stateside most users don't even know you can access the internet via mobile phone and mostly use it to just call home.

However, with each new iPhone and gadget that comes out the need is increasing and the limitations are endless. Imagine a phone that is your credit card, public transportation tickets, photo editing software and live TV? This isn't happening in other galaxies, but just a hop skip and a jump across either pond. Thinking outside the box when it comes to phone technology has been happening in Europe and Asia for the last 10 - 15 years.

Thanks to a head start on broadband mobile wireless, dependency on cell phone internet use and unified system networks, users demand their providers innovate...and their Web designs too. In the states providers are working with multiple networks, lots of laptops and poor network quality, the need isn't there.

However, in just a few years I could use my phone to: take me to work, watch a live TV show where I see an actor wearing a t-shirt that I can click on and go to the designers site, then find their local sellers, get directions from my final metro stop and then pay for it...without ever setting down the phone. Oh and find out what the restaurant across the shop is having for lunch just with a point of the phone and click. Who needs a laptop when you have a phone?

I am guessing that might change our clients and our answer on designing for PDAs. When your primary tool for accessing the internet has a screen smaller than a deck of cards it changes the playing field. Our designs will have to get smarter and development will have to evolve as well.