Comments on: So… What’s the Future of Web Design?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:52:25 +0000

The future of web design is… a huge PITA to test. Justin, please allow me to assume that future web design is widget-heavy in order to illustrate…
You can check that your new widget is usable, elegant, whatever, when embedded in a particular WordPress blog with a particular theme, shown on a particular browser on a particular operating system… but what about other blogging platforms, themes, browsers, operating systems,…
And that’s not even getting in to versions of software, different display hardware,…

By: Victoria Pickering

Victoria Pickering — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:45:03 +0000

Justin -
I agree with you – the conference was more about the last couple of years than about the future, or even the leading-edge present.
The issue of the diversity of computing platforms and devices that Bob comments on is of course one of the huge issues for the future of web design.
Another issue is the increasing separation of the contents of websites from the actual web pages they were originally designed for, whether through RSS or API’s or direct database access. I think that one of the solutions needed in the future will be ways that users can have good design applied to whatever they are viewing even if the content has been separated from its original design – like maybe having effective design “shells” that users can wrap around content they have picked up through feeds or mashups or databases.
Good design will be needed more than ever, as its purpose is to help people make sense of what they see – but it will become increasingly complex as users become more in charge of determining what they see rather than seeing primarily static web pages.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:13:54 +0000

Adobe’s Flex is starting to gain momentum and so are other products like Flash and Silverlight. With Mobile devices and UMPC’s coming out left and right and social platforms like Facebook and Google trying to compete with Vista and Mac OS for people’s computing platform of choice there will probably be more emphasis on design that has these formats and platforms in mind. I set up the Internet channel for my Wii recently and it uses Opera for browsing. You’ve got your OLPC. Etc.

Bob
Jobmatchbox.com

By: alex harris - alexdesigns

alex harris - alexdesigns — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:55:36 +0000

I went to FOWD last year, and left asking myself the same thing.

I think the future of web design will smack us in the face without us knowing what it is.