Shifting Paradigms of Website User Interaction
In a fashion this article follows on from Creeping Determinism of the Mobile Web because the paradigms, or world views, of what constitutes a website and expected interaction models are in flux. It always has been an evolutionary process – however that might offend some people’s sense of security in the continuum.
Seriously, the World Wide Web is only around 6,000 days old. Its one of a number of applications which run on the Internet, a global backbone of ad-hoc servers and routers owned in the most part by private entities. Only a year or two ago the web was still basically locked into the keyboard and mouse for interface interaction but the mobile web hovered on our peripheral vision like a pimple waiting to pop. It became a small boil; then a carbunkle. Enter the iPhone and as Miles Burke at the Sitepoint Tribune points out, a recent Nielsen survey states that the most common Internet connected mobile device is the iPhone.
Enter the iPhone’s touch screen. Interaction designers had begun making real breakthroughs because technology has provided the ability to push the boundaries beyond the keyboard interface. Now we’re seeing the iPad and there are apparently some interesting touch screen technology patents that make it clear the interaction experience will be much more sophisticated than just a larger iPhone. OK we’re talking iPad version 1 – its still early days to build on product specifications and capabilities. Its less a computer and more of a media experience device – lean, mean and specialised.
As Miles Burke mentioned, we’re not looking at the 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 resolution landscape anymore. We can’t guarantee our website users are running on any particular hardware / software configuration. What screen size they use depends on the context of their situation – desktop, laptop, PDA, mobile phone, iPad (and the list will only grow more interesting). This means, as web developers, we’re going to have to raise the interaction designer on our team from the bottom rung right up to the management level. Why? Because for successful web solutions to happen it will take more than a programmer and a graphic designer to create classic websites.
The key to the issue is context. How your website interacts with a user will be entirely different when they are on a bus using a PDA than when they are in a cafe using a laptop. Different types of users will use different devices. The iPad, for example, will introduce its own capabilities and expectations onto the market.
The real excitement of web design and development into the next decade isn’t that we’ll get some fancy new technology. Its that gesture and context will converge on a world we currently think of as buttons and static screens. Its time to start rethinking the construction of our web teams to consider these new competencies – that is, if you want to be successful.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Thanks for this post, Steven. You really nailed what my article was saying. Thanks for sharing!
February 6th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Cheers Miles, I’m sure that there will be a load of creeping determinism evident as time evolves. Everyone will swear this was inevitable all along.
I’m always kind of flawed by people’s blind acceptance that the web is how it will always be… for one its running on a 30 year old stateless protocol. That’s got to change at some point in our future too. Ambient environments will become more dominant. I think that’s where the real interesting stuff is going. I’d hate to think in 20 years time I would be creating simple web pages that were “Oh my God” faster.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:34 am
The interview with Mossman, Arrington and Carr discussing the iPad is a well spent 23 minutes.