Recently I’ve noticed a new trend in site design, which is the use of full motion video as a background — a kind of moving desktop wallpaper, over which information is laid. Now, when I started out in design (way back in the last century, with the coal-fired computers) one of the fundamental tenets of the craft was that “good” design directed and focused the viewer’s eye around the page/screen. And even for web design that largely holds true, especially with regards to UI. But as with so many things, technological advances are changing the rules, at least on a design level. Example 1:
http://www.visionstreetwear.com
Whew. (Attn fogeys: the music “Off” is top right.) I actually love the look of all this, perfect for the brand, even if the content itself isn’t as energized as the video. Furthermore, once I realized the video was just looping, I “pulled back “and used the navigation (although I thought it was funny that for all the sensory overload of this site, there are no “over” states on the buttons!). At one point, they even run video clips over the video background. That is some serious picture-in-picture action.
Ah but, you say, that’s some crazy adolescents’ site, and they’re all about the sensory overload and multi-screen experiences etc. Fine for a niche market, but not for grown-ups. Not so fast. This site for Four Seasons uses a similar concept, but to a very different effect:
http://www.showmeto.com/borabora/
Like the ‘boarder site, the content itself is a bit underwhelming compared to the gorgeous video in the background (it’s almost like on both sites, the designers got vertigo in terms of how much they could get away with), but it’s interesting to see how the video creates a type of emotional “narrative experience” that even the most gorgeous page designs couldn’t hope to achieve.
In both cases, I was struck by how this is what so-called “Interactive TV” of the ‘90s (anyone remember the promise of WebTV? Anyone?) was trying to create — a mixed viewing experience which pushed and pulled the viewer’s focus from the general to the specific. In those days, the big issue was that content providers (who were king) were not comfortable with focus being pulled off their expensive shows for so-called “secondary content”. On the web though, where information has traditionally ruled, exactly which content is “secondary” is now less clear.
I think this whole type of experience is still in its infancy, but one can see the potential for a new kind of experience and design paradigm (not to mention UI); one which focuses less on directing the viewer’s eye left/right/up/down, and more on pulling the eye INTO (ie behind the interface to the video experience) and pushing it OUT again, depending on where you want to move focus.
Or, if you’re really New School, maybe you just let them look wherever the hell they want.
Elliott Smith
Strategists & Planners
Comments (4)
As someone who started their career in Interactive TV in 2000 in the UK, i find these sites to be fantastic. Exactly what we wanted to do but the technology didn't allow us. Way back when, I was a designer on the first iTV channel in the UK & France (PlayJam), but I see so much more promise in the functionality online. One day we won't even need TVs with services such as Joost!
Posted on July 20, 2007 09:01
Sarah,
Thanks for your comment, nice to hear from someone who worked in iTV. I spent a few years doing that as well, and I remember being frustrated with the gap of what the pundits were promising and the reality of designing for it. Static interfaces in full 8-bit glory on 56k modems... Eek.
One thing about Joost that I found curious was that they adopted the old model of licensing traditional content and then laying chat etc over top rather than taking fuller advantage of the online functionalities you mention -- which really didn't work great the first time around. Hard to know if audiences weren't "ready" back then, or if it's just not a very good idea. Maybe they just want to get the service up and established and hope content developers will develop more advanced show structures to take advantage of the interactive possibilities..?
Posted on July 20, 2007 09:35
I love the Bora Bora site, do you know who built it? I love it.
Thanks!
Posted on July 26, 2007 11:39
Back in the iTV days the big sell was that people were comfortable with TV as a medium and that that was going to be the roots of success of any iTV channel. That was back when insight told us that a minority of people in the UK had computers and broadband at home. The only really engaging iTV I ever came accross (and maybe I just avoided it when I got home because I worked on it 9-5) was the kind that was a layer over a regular show. So for example playing along with Who Wants to be a Millionaire through your remote much like AOL chat users have done in N. America. The channels I worked on were accessed through a different button on the remote that took you to a parallel feed and what was essentially a very basic website. I spent many a night experimenting with how we could push functionality on different set top boxes!
Posted on July 26, 2007 20:51