In reply to Herb Trevathan.

Thought provoking comment Herb. Right now I'm still a little puzzled by how popular tablets are, since they are so heavy to hold. From a design point of view touch interfaces have a lot of downsides (no hover, fingers that obscure the screen, accidental touches, finger prints and other smudges on the screen to name a few). When devices come available that are as light and kinesthetically pleasing as paper, then maybe web design could merge the best of print with the best of what computing devices offer. In the mean time I'm quite happy with web powered design finding newer and better ways to deliver content experiences.

I feel quite conflicted about how tablets and more powerful devices are shaping trends because they don't always lead to better usability. Just today I was browsing an online news paper that had clearly tailored their articles for tablets, but the usability was horrendous on desktop. The rise of the high definition display also has lead many sites to add more kbs to their pages. Pages have gotten slower instead of faster because sites have gone a little overboard with using more & bigger assets (pictures, fonts, videos etc).

The desire for more aesthetically pleasing layouts (tons of white space, huge pictures, scrolling effects and incredibly long pages) also may have steered a bit of group think, leading to assumptions about how people want to engage with sites. Personally, I notice myself getting 'scroll tired' and I notice this especially on the trendy landing pages. I'm pretty sure its psychological. I've been wondering about why and I think there's a correlation between how much I have to scroll and how much I get in return in terms of information/stimuli.

Another little thing that gets lost is the fact that people have different settings, mouse wheel settings for example can make a huge difference, but this detail is easy to overlook when designing scroll intensive web experiences. What might feel supersmooth on the iMac of a designer, may feel jolty or sluggish on the customer's device.

I can't help think that when I'm browsing some of these sites, I'm actually navigating a beautifully designer billboard poster with a magnifying glass, slowly scrolling my way down without really being able to take it in as fast I want. I think it's an example of where real world design has crept into webdesign with mixed results.

I guess I went on a bit of a tangent.