Designing Nonvisual Bookmarks for Mobile PDA Users

Mobile users of information systems are not always able to view needed information because visual attention is required elsewhere. Personal data assistants (PDAs) and other mobile information devices used by the typical mobile knowledge worker support mechanisms that allow for the “hearing” of information stored on these devices. However, few of these nonvisual mechanisms provide a way to save, organize, and retrieve portions of the information being reviewed, i.e., no type of information bookmarking is readily available for the visually occupied mobile users of PDAs. This paper presents a design and implementation of nonvisual bookmarking. The key part of the paper describes multiple design options laid out in a human-computer interaction style design space. This paper discusses the resulting design space for nonvisual bookmarking and its implications. Because of its inherent ability to guide design choices and tradeoffs when creating new interaction styles, the design space serves as an appropriate tool for confronting the unique problems inherent in nonvisual bookmarking.