A high-density information presentation is provided on a space-constrained display device by associating individual display indications with user-definable states. For example, using a portion of a space-constrained display of a mobile phone, pager personal digital assistant or other portable device, one or more external states may be presented as a simple graphical or character indication that corresponds, in a user-defined way, to the external state or states. In general, implementations allow monitoring and access of a large amount of data on a space-constrained display device. Usability problems associated with traditional systems that split data access and navigation over paged small screens are generally avoided.