Thinking about video in user experience design
David Johnson June 18th, 2007
Mediapost’s Video Insider Blog today poses the question, “What Would Jakob Nielsen Think?” While we may not have phrased it thusly, many of us are asking ourselves questions about the best way to integrate video into our information architecture and user interfaces. Quoth the blogger, Alan Schulman, “These are interesting times. The Web canvas is becoming more open and dynamic, while the way we scan and process static information hasn’t changed much since the advent of the printing press.” The LR bloggers are champions of clean, open design. When I look at many local broadcast sites, I find pages that are packed tight, overcrowded with aggressive palates, and played hard with remade versions of onscreen graphics and anchor mugs (and the occasional weather dog). Then I see the peaceful serenity and easy focus in the simple sequential deployment of embedded video players by vloggers and wonder, why can’t local tv sites look more like Jetset or zefrank’s the show? Now, blogware tends to sacrifice design in trade for publishing ease, but we all have to dance with some kind of CMS. Why is it this way? What got us here and where are we going? Your thoughts?
3 Comments Add your own
1. JoeMo | June 18th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I think the biggest factor behind cluttered pages and un-friendly design is the fact that the previous standards of design were morphed so quickly without the required thought put into them. What is missing from the equation is risk takers, there aren’t that many sites out there that are pushing the envelope in regards to design and user interaction; at least in the new realm and there may not be for quite some time. You may think your site is ahead of the curve in regards to design but most certainly you are behind it; we just need one person to step up and really take a risk in regards to to way we see local news portals online; no revolution without evolution. Just my thoughts, feel free to flame.
2. Rob | June 18th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
You come up with what you think is a clean, simple, easy-to-use design, build it, roll it out, and then priorities change and your website is forced to change with the priorities. As time goes on your once clean site becomes more and more cluttered.
The other problem for broadcast sites - they have no identity. Is it a TV site, a news site, a weather site, a sales engine, an entertainment site or a promotional campaign for the TV station? In most cases, instead of doing one thing really well we do everything poorly.
3. Andrew Lloyd Webber Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat album | October 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
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