HCD | "Content & Context" Design Adaptation
Back in 2008, I was using an Internet Tablet made by Nokia. It was laughable compared with the iPad of today, but the first iPad did not launch until April 2010. Lots of people stopped me in cafes to ask about it. It was larger than a phone. Guess what the most common question was? Yep - does it make phone calls. As soon as I said no…but…they lost interest (it had skype!). Nobody I met could see value in “just a wifi” device for viewing web pages. It still makes me chuckle — partly because that’s exactly what the iPad did and partly because I was stupid enough to buy it. Call me a crazy one. But it met a need for me. I wanted to keep up with financial news while I was out and about in the city, but that’s all I wanted it for, so paying subscription on an iPhone at the time was overkill. Besides, this tablet was great for email and RSS feeds and had a bunch of 3rd party dev apps. Far more geek than chic.
Anyway, here’s the thing. It used to frustrate the heck out of me when viewing full web pages because it was so slow - to the point where I felt like throwing it at a brick wall. The key was that it had 800 pixels wide in landscape, and although the iPhone had a superior browser and graphics engine, I could view webpages without all the pinch-to-zoom jazz required on the iPhone. But with mobile web pages, my geek-machine worked like a charm. I remember talking with a programmer in a cafe and we got talking about the web. I said that I thought it was “messy” (this was 2008) and wouldn’t it be nice if when I visited a webpage, the website somehow detected that I was on a type of mobile device and would automatically select the mobile site for me instead of me having to switch between the two manually. He probably thought I’d had too much caffeine. Zoom forward to the present day and we have this thing called “Responsive Design”. Perfect!
In the scenario above, what I am advocating is “Responsive Design 2.0” (if you will), i.e., the ability for not just the device to dictate the style of presentation, but the actual nature of the content itself would drive how it is presented. So, as explained it could be something along the lines of:
Anyway, here’s the thing. It used to frustrate the heck out of me when viewing full web pages because it was so slow - to the point where I felt like throwing it at a brick wall. The key was that it had 800 pixels wide in landscape, and although the iPhone had a superior browser and graphics engine, I could view webpages without all the pinch-to-zoom jazz required on the iPhone. But with mobile web pages, my geek-machine worked like a charm. I remember talking with a programmer in a cafe and we got talking about the web. I said that I thought it was “messy” (this was 2008) and wouldn’t it be nice if when I visited a webpage, the website somehow detected that I was on a type of mobile device and would automatically select the mobile site for me instead of me having to switch between the two manually. He probably thought I’d had too much caffeine. Zoom forward to the present day and we have this thing called “Responsive Design”. Perfect!
In the scenario above, what I am advocating is “Responsive Design 2.0” (if you will), i.e., the ability for not just the device to dictate the style of presentation, but the actual nature of the content itself would drive how it is presented. So, as explained it could be something along the lines of:
- Drive customer action == rich and engaging media content to command attention, to entice and drive to act!
- Better informed == clean, clear, functional, crisp information for absorption and retention e.g. high legibility, optimally structured, perfectly “chunked”.
HCD | "Content & Context" Design Adaptation
![HCD | "Content & Context" Design Adaptation]()
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