Checkpoint 1.3 - Mobile-PDA

Mobile phones and PDAs present difficulties to the user when the user is required to type information due to the size of the device and the usability and provision of keyboard or other data entry mechanisms provided on the device. Typing URLs can be especially difficult as their structure may not be understandable by the user and may contain special characters outside the familiar A-Z and 0-9 key range.

Users will prefer to use alternative methods such as hyperlinks to access linked pages and functionality, however in some cases, typing the URL is the only option.

Requirement

URLs are kept short

Recommendation

When the URL is kept short there is less chance of user error.

Consider configuring the web site so that the file extension does not need to be typed and the subdirectory home page is the default when not included in the URL.

Example:

• http://example.org/example instead of http://www.example.org/example.html
• http://example.org instead of http://www.example.org/index.html

Checking Tool

View the page in a mobile phone emulator or on a mobile phone

Information Source

The original source of this information is located on the W3C web site  (www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/#tech-simple-and-straightforward)