Usability considerations in the design of handheld electronic devices

Many handheld electronic devices such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and TV/video remote controls have become a part our daily life; and in recent years there has been competition amongst manufacturers to introduce increasingly compact forms of these products. Consequently, their sizes are decreasing gradually to palm size or smaller and the user-interface is becoming more difficult to interact with. Many of these products are not accessible to large sections of the population because the diversity in user capabilities and requirements was not accounted for during the design process. One reason for this is the lack of proper design guidelines to take account of the needs and expectations of a wider range of users. This paper focuses on the necessity of adopting inclusive design approaches in the design of handheld devices, describes some important design issues pertinent to these devices in general and finally aims to give a broad range of solutions that the designers can apply in a wide variety of circumstances when designing handheld electronic devices.