Missing the Little Picture

Yahoo ( http://go.yahoo.com) and Microsoft ( http://mobile.search.live.com) have downloadable mobile-phone software available, but Google offers a wider, more compatible assortment of these programs. Its handheld version of Google Maps -- available at http://google.com/gmm for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Java-enabled phones -- should be essential for anybody who wants to, say, leave the house.

Smaller developers have also ventured into this category. Palm Treo users, for instance, can use the free Directory Assistant and Flight Status programs (search for both on http://palmgear.com) to look up phone numbers and flight-schedule info on the go.

Some sites come designed specifically for the mobile phone, and these have made huge advances. In fact, sometimes, they wind up being more useful than their full-fledged desktop versions.

Consider the mobile editions of Washington's Metro and Major League Baseball. At Metro's page (visit http://wmata.com/mobile on your phone), you see only the four items you'd want to know about on the go: "Plan Trip," "Next Scheduled Departure," "Next Train Information" and, when applicable, "Service Alerts." Follow each of those links -- all are numbered, so you only need to hit the right number key instead of trying to navigate by using buttons on the phone -- and in a few, quick-loading screens you'll have the information you need.

But if you go to Metro's regular site, you have to work harder to find these data. Getting arrival times for the next train to pull into a station, for example, requires going through two screens' worth of content first.

At MLB's mobile site (go to http://wap.mlb.com on your phone), you'll find a simple eight-item menu that puts the important stuff -- status, scores, standings, news and so on -- a mere press of a button away. But on baseball's normal home page, you have to pore over dozens of drop-down menus, navigational bars and animated listings.

As an added bonus, the discipline imposed by a phone's small screen and slow connections has done a wonderful thing in these and other cases. It has forced Web designers to focus on what users need, instead of concocting flashy interfaces that look great in conference-room demonstrations.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com.