NFL Website Detection

Sal over at salgambino.blogspot.com was wondering how the NFL's website would render to a smaller device.  When one goes to NFL.com in a regular browser, there is an overwhelming amount of options for the user to choose.  How exactly would this translate on to a smaller screen?

From Sal:

1) There are 14 menu menu items running horizontally across/below the

 banner
2) The "Teams" menu pulldown has over 30 submenu items: one for each team in the NFL
(Does anybody remember the concept of "seven plus or minus two"?)
There are hundreds of links all over this page, most of which you don't even know they
are there unless you run your mouse over it, and then you are not even sure if you're on top of what you're trying to click to!

I decided to turn this into a blog post here because it didn't appear that I would be allowed to attach an image in Sal's comment section.  When one goes to www.nfl.com on a phone (at least on the Motorola Q that I tested), the user is redirected to wap.nfl.com.  The wap version is a scaled down version of the site and fits in nicely with the one touch scroll:

Overall I was impressed by the user experience on the device.  Often the same complaints Sal had regarding the full web version of the NFL site apply to sites browsed using a portable device. The issue is resolved by the NFL's WAP detection and refitting of the site.

Federated States of Micronesia

I was working through the Nova site in order to send my transcripts to a potential employer and I got hit by the Federated States of Micronesia.  What does this mean?  If you live in Florida you know.  On a state pull down menu for a web form, when you press the letter F, the form defaults to Federated States of Micronesia.

Nova's main campus resides in Florida, and the Federated States of Micronesia don't constitute a state.  Not only that, but the country is spelled incorrectly.  I'd be curious how many more students are from Florida rather than the Federated States of Micronesia.  Here is an example:

Not much later, I needed to make a payment to NSU.  The user experience is not uniform and in this case the Federated States of Micronesia was not present:

The possible solution is to make territories a separate menu, or possibly move areas such as Guam and FSoM to a separate area of the menu.

Motorola Q Wins Design Challenge

I was looking through Michael J. Darnell's blog (baddesigns.com) and came across a cellphone entry.  The cellphone looks like an older model Motorola so I decided to test his issue on my Motorola Q.  Darnell's problem is that he uses his cellphone as a watch, but can't see the time when the phone is locked.  Many of us lock our phones and place them in our pockets so that they do not dial out.

I just recently found the lock function on the Motorola Q by necessity because I have been dialing random people in my phone without it.  I also use my cell phone as a watch, so I needed to check to see if Motorola fixed this bad design.  Lucky for me they did!  Here's the phone in regular use:

After locking the phone, and then pressing a key to check the time, the phone display is not covered as in Darnell's case.  The screen simply shows that you may unlock the phone if needed: