Future of Site Design

We just held an event where Alex Limi, User Interface Designer at Google,
Bill Scott, Ajax Evangelist & Design Manager at Yahoo, and
Luke Kowalski, Corporate UI Architect at Oracle spoke to the Future of Site Design. It was highly interesting to get the viewpoints of some of the top companies on the web on this subject. And also, not surprisingly, the answers were not all simple.

Here's a re-cap:

pendulum swinging back to the level of interactivity of the desktop experience e.g. drag and drop capability.

RIA performance issues need to be balanced i.e. balance of ajax applications and performance issues.

more drag and drop use.

equivalent facilitation of accessibility i.e. alternate renditions of UI for handicapped users.

more stateful applications requiring less clicks and providing more feedback.

enterprise to consumer mashups e.g. portals.

hosted applications e.g. Google docs and spreadsheets.

tools being created for mobile platforms e.g. FlashLite.

less use of gratuitous animation.

running ajax locally and syncronizing when back online.

should be more careful consideration given to localization issues.

2007 will be the year of the ajax blunt.

key to site design for future is the user i.e. understanding their pain and pleasure points.

use of patterns to create better sites.

will see more direct manipulation of sites e.g. inline text editing, etc.

more selection mechanisms will show up on sites and boggling of it.

use restraint in implementing technology.

think of page as shareable objects versus just content to create mashups

improved discoverability

just-in-time content in context

offline storage

blending of the desktops and the web e.g. Google Earth, Adobe Apollo, and Microsoft SWPF

Other emerging themes for the year include:

Simplicity is expected to be a theme going forward.

Web 2.0 design elements such as radial edges, gradients, larger text, etc. are all expected to maintain their allure.

Widgets and the widgetization of the web, both desktop as well as mobile, are also expected to be a driving force for this year.