once bitten

words and things from Edd Dumbill 
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February 17, 2010
 

BBC's new look points web design back to print and video

via bbc.co.uk

Reading the fascinating and laudably open post from the BBC's Head of Design and User Experience, Bronwyn van der Merwe, it struck me that the new trend in web design seems to be more towards reclaiming techniques and style from print and video, getting us past the boxy conventions of the last ten years on the web.

On a similar theme, the Adobe/Wired interactive prototype shows this inclination too, but coming from the magazine angle back towards digital.

With devices such as the iPad around the corner, along with higher definition screens, web design as we know it is about to evolve once more, bringing users higher fidelity content and designers more creative power.

One of the more telling lines from van der Merwe's article was this: "We've lived with and loved the distinctly 'web 2.0' design for a while now and it's done us proud. However, time's moved on..."

When the BBC says they're moving on from 'web 2.0' design, it's really happening.

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Filed under  //   bbc   design  

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February 1, 2010
 

The iPad is real-life social

Update: I've revised these thoughts and posted them for broader consumption over at O'Reilly Radar.

Much has been said about the iPad, but I thought I'd pitch in with thoughts I had over the weekend.

After reading an article saying that the iPad was antisocial, because it wasn't hooked up to IM or had SMS, it struck me this was a restricted view of what it means to be social.

The iPad is real-life social in a way that a phone and a laptop just aren't. You really can just hand it to someone to show them what you mean: share photos, videos, writing with real people right next to you. I can see using it to learn with a child, share pictures with my mother, discuss house remodeling, and many other tasks normally done with paper. In conversation with friends last week I realized that, sat in its dock, the iPad would be the ideal cookbook.

In the office, the iPad offers a middle-ground I've found lacking in electronic devices. Bringing my laptop into meetings puts up a screen between me and others, is a hassle to unplug and carry around, and can be personally distracting. Taking my iPhone to make notes makes people think I'm bored of the meeting and sending text messages to friends instead. So normally I choose paper, and tend to lose my notes afterwards.

The iPad is a device that will find fans not only in a family setting, but in a creative setting where collaboration and comment is in person. Criticized for not being open because of digital rights management, the iPad is actually very open, in the sense that it erects few physical barriers to sharing.

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Filed under  //   apple   design   ipad  

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