Moving beyond the page metaphor on the web
Atomiq - Beyond the Page and Atomiq - Beyond the Page (the return)
- the “page” currently functions as the basic presentation and organizational unit – both for people browsing the web, and for people who produce content for the web
- however, new trends on the web are challenging and disrupting the page metaphor:
- Rich Internet Applications (RIA) – including those using Flash, Ajax, and Java
- RSS / Atom / XML content – can be mixed/spliced with other content
- “blurred boundaries” – between the desktop and the web, and between other devices that can share web content
- current IA tools, such as site maps and wireframes, are inadequate for modelling the new breed of websites/content
- new IA tools:
- wireflows
- canonical prototyping
- content models
- a new website, RIAIA.com will be covering issues pertaining to IA for RIAs (no content there at the moment)
- see also: IAlog - RIAs and the death of the page (rumors greatly exaggerated)
- moving beyond the page metaphor may also pose a difficulty for web analytics – how do we measure these new sites?
- Flash has user event capture functionality
- Ajax still makes use of http request, which are logged by the server
- tracking inside these interfaces requires more tagging of content
- the potential exists to capture even more information than what is available with convential log files, such as data on mouse gestures and movements
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