Is it the screen or the ‘page’?

I have been digging deep into everything that relates to my ‘topic’. When I felt overwhelmed, I finally asked myself what the solutions are to some of these problems.

Viewing the ‘web page’ as an ‘application’ has gained a lot of popularity. A responsive and/or adaptive site offers mobile-friendly content to the widest possible audiences. For years we had the website and the mobile site or app, that process is proving itself to be unsuccessful everyday. Having two or three ‘sites’ not only increases design and development, but also hiders consistency, navigation patterns, learning curves, and overall causes frustration to the cross-device user. This is where adaptive design and responsive design come into play. A site or application designed to adapt to its environment; not device but view-port. Continue reading

Designing with and for a human touch.

Advances in technology have pushed us to new and innovate methods of human-computer interaction. Touch screens have proven to be the ideal vessel and stands at the forefront of countless convergences. Our current focus on touch has lead many industries to concentrate on lifting the limitations and advancing the tech. Tactile touchscreen technology will allow objects to rise up from and disappear into the screen, transforming the virtual into the physical. The future holds malleable screens, screens built into mirrors and desks, tactile feedback tech, 3D, and even cloths and screens with color e-ink technology. Screen technology has been developed with such force that we are only limited by imagination, it has taken its place as a creative medium. Continue reading

Skeuomorphs: balancing yesterday & tomorrow into today.

Another topic of interest is the catch-all term skeuomorph, objects that retain ornamental elements of the past, derivative iterations of elements that are no longer necessary for function, or derivative objects that retain ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original and how we use it to define navigational patterns and interaction. We now stand at a time where many believe skeuomorphs are becoming archaisms. The best way I can explain it is to look at how we measure engine power, in horsepower. At one point this made sense, they compared the output to something commonly known, the output of a horse, believe it or not people knew how much a horse could pull. My car has 286HP, that does not mean much to me…it may have made sense 100 years ago but today I cant even picture what 286 horses look likes, I guess I could Google it. The thing about this debate on archaisms is that it is not a debate on design trends or aesthetics it is a debate about human transition. We build off what exists. The trick is to design for the times in order to drive a smooth frustration free evolution into tomorrow and learn while doing it. It is the balance of innovation, a term that sounds so positive, but don’t let it fool you, innovation can quickly become irresponsible. We cant fix the horsepower archaism by changing it to light years. My question is how do we balance yesterday and tomorrow into today.

Transforming the virtual into the physical.

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A topic that has stood out to me is how interactive mediums transform the virtual into the physical. I have noticed this the most in touch. Touch screen technologies will, before we know it, change how and what we design. I feel that design will turn back to tradition through innovation; processes are becoming more and more interactive, the idea of touch is a callback to the days of pen and paper, the hand made. It is leading us to create as and for humans, not devices. We are also facing the obsolescence of the desktop leading to a greater level of collaboration, we can now create anywhere again and with anyone. The future will bring screens that can create textures and I can only imagine what that can do for accessibility. Such technology empowers both the designer and viewer, is reshaping how we craft narratives, and the very way we create.