With the rise of mobile computing and the smaller screen sizes, even
including tiny screens such as Google Glass, the current direction in
information design is to present the information as a card. Here is an
article about it, where they discuss several advantages of cards, "Why
cards are the future of the Web"
http://insideintercom.io/why-cards-are-the-future-of-the-web/. The
author writes:
"This [i.e. the multiple shapes and sizes of screens] is driving the web
away from many pages of content linked together, towards individual
pieces of content aggregated together into one experience" and the
author shows how Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Spotify and other sites
are moving to card displays.
You are also invited to "Think about cards in the physical world. They
can be turned over to reveal more, folded for a summary and expanded for
more details, stacked to save space, sorted, grouped, and spread out to
survey more than one." The conclusion: "I think there is no getting away
from it. Cards are the next big thing in design and the creative arts.
To me that’s incredibly exciting."
These new discussions are about displays and about how much a screen can
or cannot handle. I have wondered whether people actually read any of
those insanely long pages in Amazon, where we learn that Melville's
"Moby Dick" is a great book (!), that it has gotten 4.1 out of 5 stars
and there is the option of reading 921 customer reviews, which may dwarf
Melville's monstrous text.
http://www.amazon.com/Moby-Dick-Or-Whale-Clothbound-Classics/dp/0141199601
The new type of card can vary in size, and in fact, should be seen more
as a "canvas" than an actual card, but it seems to me that it is more of
a philosophical change because such a display can only limit what is
made available to the reader. As a result, the world wide web was built
to make more information available, but it is clear that the examples of
the cards show, their purpose is to limit what is available.
Yet I can imagine a librarian/cataloger just groaning at the thought of
reintroducing cards because it dredges up a very sad past.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
--
James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
First Thus http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
Cooperative Cataloging Rules http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Cataloging Matters Podcasts http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
Received on Fri Oct 04 2013 - 06:54:36 EDT