Each year "Communication Arts Magazine" presents a series of 'winning' projects in its Interactive Design Annual. The projects are a good indication of the present state of interaction design. This entry glances at a few of the winning 2004 entries to reflect on directions in interaction design but also to present a critique for digital libraries. The examples here are from advertising, but models presented may be easily reoriented to a spectrum of academic and robust digital library models.
To begin, The Aiga Vancouver Culture Guide makes elegant use of 'the new Flash Zoomifyer' discussed in a previous entry to present a map of Vancouver. Elegant use of 'hot spots' are used and the reduced color pallete presents an innovative navigational archive to Vancouver's culture. Audi makes fairly standard use of Flash video to present a model menu for cars. The menus here are 'too' multi-layered to see a big picture and visuality without substance is 'excessive'. Similarly, the Bahama Island Tour presents an example of clean design but with too heavy a download expectation (55 megs). Interesting to note are the amount of people involved in these projects. Production models are taken from film. To create a single site a team involves: creative director, art director, developers, technology director, graphic designer, writer, producer, project managers, photographer, video director, digital video producer, production artist (Bahamas site, 6 months, twenty people).
Other entries use new technological possibilities: blogs, voicemail, new touch screen technology and DVD interface possibilities. Architectural and 3D paradigms continue to struggle forward with still clunky downloads. Some entries make use of previous analogue metaphor (paper folding, cut-out figures) to represent digital artifiacts but this type of technical virtuosity is not overly effective. Others present product libraries. The interface and way of filtering could be put to good use in a digital library forum. Trends in design are again oriented towards clean design with strong lines and plenty of whitespace. Joshua Davis's design influence in information architecture is well evident.
More interesting entries such as CBC radio 3, innovatively use browser specificity (maximum screen size, Javascript elimination of browser buttons). This 'online radio magazine' adopts a Rolling Stone-type look to present a new media pop journal. The navigation is disconcerting but high-res images are used to excellent effect and flash design is elegantly tailored to each article. The other prevalent model in these designs comes from film and hearkens to the 'movie' metaphor. The trend overall is towards higher image resolution for photos and more use of video for DSL lines. Another example of this use of imagery may be seen at http://www.commarts.com/ca/interactive/cai04/33_ia04.html
Discussed in an entry last August, Macromedia's Intro Networking Application continues to use technology at a higher level. This is a 'social networking tool' and really should begin to be built into academic digital libraries. We have yet to see the impact. To generalize, while many of these 'winning' entries provide an excess of visuality in information design, digital libraries could take a lesson and begin to adapt, remake, remodel and remix interfaces. Most are still working from an opposite command line extreme.
Posted by at September 14, 2004 9:43 AM | TrackBack