Focus+Context sketching on a pocket PC

Current Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) such as Pocket PCs provide little support for sketching. This is due, no doubt, to the limited screen size and relatively poor resolution of these devices. To support sketching on these devices, we describe a Focus+Context technique using fisheye views integrated into a sketching application on Pocket PCs. Our technique creates a distorted display view of a canvas that is larger than a Pocket PC screen. Users draw in a high resolution focus area that is smoothly embedded into the distorted context. We have conducted a modest user trial that validates user preference for this drawing technique over a traditional scroll-bar based interface.