Optimized PDA orientation and screen layout for Chinese vocabulary learning by young children

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices are widely available in both horizontal and vertical formats. This study investigates user preferences for the PDA format and defines an optimal screen layout for each format in terms of the relative positioning of the image and the vocabulary item. The experimental results indicate that there is no significant difference in the user preference for the PDA format. In the vertical format PDA, it is found that the vocabulary term should ideally be positioned below the image. Meanwhile, in the horizontal format PDA, the vocabulary item should be positioned to the right of the image.