Gather A Crowd
If designing for the desktop browser is a prologue to the story of the web, mobile is merely an interlude. Design for the big-ger screen is coming, and it’s going to be fantastic. People will create HD interfaces, incredible tools, and content with a grandeur akin to an IMAX experience.
People laugh when I talk about the large screen web this way, but I am optimistic of this upcoming addition to the way websites are presented. I agree that it may not reach a high-level capacity that we see for desktop and mobile users, but the potential for interactivity with a bigger audience will be taken advantage of.
One thing I’ve realized: The Large Scale Web should be used as a serious platform to foster interactivity and educational resources, and not be viewed as a gimmick. We can’t let it go the way of 3D; the large scale web can be used as an amazing platform to gather a crowd and educate the masses.
The Soda Fountain
I would like to offer a bit of an analogy to help digest the way we view large screen web design. Let’s break our web consumption into three chunks: mobile, desktop and large scale.
The mobile web can be likened to a can of soda: Quick to drink, you can take it anywhere and it’s individually measured. The desktop web might be compared to a bottle of soda. The bottle normally stays in one place, has more to offer and can be shared amongst you and a friend or two. Finally we have the large scale web, it’s the soda fountain of content. The fountain is massive and practically immobile, but it has one distinct advantage: It can be shared with a large group of people. You aren’t going to use it in your practical day-to-day routine, but there will be occasions when it makes the most sense. The soda fountain is big, accessible and highly interactive. Yes friends, I’ve just likened the large scale web to a soda fountain.
With this new frontier in web design, designers and developers will have new responsibilities and may have to pay better attention to old ones.
One of these responsibilities is responsiveness. Many are already familiar with the concept, and it will be as important as ever. Televisions and large screen monitors come in a huge variety of sizes, and browsers will be less conventional. The ability for your website to adapt will be crucial. Responding simply to browser size and white space will be a mere piece of puzzle: In order to maximize the experience, web designers will need to account for screen modes (ex. theatre mode vs. dynamic mode), sharpness, resolution, colour, viewing distance, and input device (remote, voice, touch). Browser window variation was simply an annoyance of the old web.
The technology we’ll be using for the large scale web is less certain. We may have to brace for voice recognition, touch-screens, hand gestures or even D-pad style remotes for navigation. All of these already exist at a consumer level, but it’s too early to say which technology is best suited for home television web browsing (my money is on voice though).
Another idea to consider: big screen does not give us more space to add more widgets. It’s an invitation to simplify. I believe many large scale web applications will be built similarly to the applications we see on our mobile devices. Viewing a large screen from a distance is quite similar to viewing something on a your smartphone. Common trends we see such as simple navigation, focused content and lean websites for loading times will be carried over. Most of the traits of the “mobile first” approach still hold up! Scrolling could quickly become tiresome with a remote. Above the fold matters and horizontal interaction is now inviting. There are so many little variables that will present themselves. The complexities of the large scale web will be fun to explore!
I am most anxious for the opportunities the large scale web opens up for group interaction. For the most part people develop for individual consumption, but with the large scale web we can design and develop with group consumption in mind. Games and video content are the obvious first steps, but we will also see innovation in social media, presentations, live broadcasting, and story telling.
There are so many opportunities for web designers and developers with the current mobile explosion and advent of internet media on television. Could the production value of websites dramatically increase? The potential is endless, just as it has always been with the progression of the web.
