A mobile computing device such as a combination handheld computer and mobile telephone or smart phone generally may provide voice and data communications functionality, as well as computing and processing capabilities. As the functionality of mobile computing devices continues to improve, the amount of content to be displayed increases. While the amount of content presented to a user in the display area of a mobile computing device continues to increase, the size of mobile computing devices continues to decrease. It is desirable, therefore, for mobile computing devices to use a reduced amount of display area to display both voice transmission signal strength and data transmission strength. Consequently, there exists a substantial need for techniques to improve the status indicator for displaying signal strength for mobile computing devices.