Content-dependent Design | Design driven by Content

In a discussion on another board I was expressing my appreciation for finally having browsers with built-in reading views.

Just wanted to share this with you and get some more feedback. Does this even make any sense?

As you may know, IE11 on Win 8.1 has a reading view that gives a clean ‘eBook style’ appearance to web pages to help read articles. All the clutter of ads and social icons, etc is removed and the page is ‘beautified’ for reading. This is nothing new. Safari has had this feature for some time and other browsers have extensions that provide the same capability

I’ve often wondered how nice it would be if web pages were all designed using a ‘best practices template’ to ensure that all web page elements were positioned optimally using all the research data we now have. Just trawl the web today and the vast array of designs — some exquisite, some awful — might give you a headache.

I like what Tumblr is doing by simplifying design through a series of customizable templates. What it points to is an emphasis on content. Tumblrs all have the same underlying ‘mechanics’ but their appearance is controlled by these templates. If we opened our minds and expanded that concept to cover all websites, is it possible to envisage a day where the underlying mechanics of all websites conforms to best practices and template ‘overlays’ control how we consume content?

For instance, if a web page was marketing-oriented and its purpose was to ‘drive profitable customer action’ then it would be presented using appropriate visually stimulating effects — whatever the technology allows.

Whereas, if the content creator wanted to ensure a piece of written content was consumed, then having flashing animations circling around might be too distracting. In this case, wouldn’t it be better to avoid any distractions completely and present the information in the optimal form for reading.

Question: could that be done automatically? Could the content’s purpose automatically drive the way it is displayed and consumed?
Content dependent design.

Below are two screenshots from IE11 metro on tablet. Above: standard web page view, below: Reading View.






[Images: my screenshots].