From the previous entry (http://prinsayn.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/lacture3/), we will see that usability is the idea to make user use software/devices in easier and more understandable way. For Web technology, usability has been included in their design to make users’ life convenient. Regarding this article, Web Design: 20 Hottest Trends To Watch Out For In 2013 by Jake Rocheleau (source: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/web-design-trend-2013/), we can see many interesting ideas that web developers fancy to use and these become massive favorable by users around the world. Here, I pick some of these that very useful and favor me in navigating the website. Let check it out.
Infinite Scrolling
Instagram allows user and follower to scroll photos infinitely
I check facebook regularly to see my friends’ updated story until I scroll to the one that I have read before. I love following people in Instagram. Once I have just follow, I enjoy scrolling to see every photo in their account via the web profile. Just scroll it down and the photos will load for you. In this case, I — as a user, do not need to click go to the next page and wait for the web redirected anymore. The page just load only new contents if we scroll to the end of the page which is effective and make my life easier.
My facebook timeline support the infinite scrolling. Click on this navigation bar to start scrolling at that year
Fixed Header Bars
Even the article website uses the fixed header bar
Since we have the infinite scrolling, the only problem in if I want to navigate to other section of the web site I need to go back to the top of the page which is painful if I enjoy scrolling too much. The problem solved when the Fixed Header Bars come into my life. So I can scroll down infinitely without worrying about go to other pages. As Jake Rocheleau, the author, said that This design can work on practically any website because it looks great with most of the web layouts.
Single-Page Web Design
Single page inforgraphic from http://infographicthailand.com/
I fancynavigating website via a single page which separated each topic in to the section. So that user does not need to waste time loading another page. Also, this style gain user attention in each section since everything in one page need to arrange systematically. For example, you guys can look at Infographic Thailand website (link here: http://infographicthailand.com/). They split each section with different colors so that the user understand in is the different parts.
From the article, you can see that most of the interesting trend this year implemented by the cheeky technology called CSS, JQuery and AJAX. These technologies help developer a lot in making their website dynamic. Not only appearance but also functionality that satisfy users. It let user have more interaction with each other and serve more natural user experience.
From a psychological perspective, I just think that, in a nutshell, this entry reflects a prevalent behavioural trend, which is a shorter attention span.
Look at how numerical data has been re-interpreted into graphics as such, the digital media has indeed brought about an era when you really have to grasp as much as you can with the least time possible. But it saddens me to think that our knowledge may grow in breadth but not depth.
I believe that when we jump into digital convergence era, various tools are used in order to serve us to have the easier life. On the other hand, everything becomes easy and easy so we seem like we do not need to do anything. Even the book, we scroll it on our tablets instead of open the book. So we can reject that digital things change our life and behaviour. Anyway, a lot of info are changed the format of representation to graphic things. At least if people want to know the info, they can study from it. This info needs to be analyze and digest the knowledge first before it comes into graphic, so there must be someone who depth in this info behind that. Thank you for sharing your idea