# Scrolling Versus Menus on Small Mobile Device Screens: A Mobile Portal Usability Study

> MeRC Working Paper #24 by Wu, Cao and Archer, July 2008: a usability study comparing scrollable and menu-driven PDA interfaces with a desktop display.

Page URL: https://merc-mcmaster.ca/working-papers/scrolling-versus-menus-on-small-mobile-device-screens-a-mobile-portal-usability-study/

Working Paper #24 by Bruce Wu, Fang Cao and Norm Archer, July 2008.

- Wireless device interfaces are harder to make acceptable than desktop ones.
- Wireless Web portals offered one way to provide application access.
- The study used reusable portlets supporting functions through wireless PDAs.

## Method

- Two PDA interfaces were built for an organizational application.
- One made every function available by scrolling.
- The other used five portlets in separate displays linked by menus.
- Users compared a desktop display, the scrollable PDA and the menu PDA.

## Result

- Users preferred the desktop interface.
- They ranked the menu-driven and scrollable PDA versions indifferently.