PUBLIC MARKS from sbrothier with tags "responsive design" & ipad

USA Today introduced a new version of its website Saturday, one day after it debuted a new design in print. My overall impression: The new site does not feel like a newspaper website, it feels like a news website. It also feels a bit like an iPad app, with a horizontal experience and visual emphasis. A click feels like a finger swipe. Gannett/USA Today Director of Product Design Bill Thornton said in a tweet, “We think the key is to make the experience more app-like and have fewer hard page refreshes.” Still, the site feels like USA Today because it’s anchored by images and color. Here are five reasons the reinvention works for me.

During the last years, our design studio has been involved in many different projects – from designing mainly websites and desktop software in our early days, to smartphone apps, prototypes for TV interfaces and more recently, applications for tablet devices. Working for all those devices was interesting and challenging. Not just because of the diverse screen sizes and input methods, but because we learned in our user research how different the contexts are in which these gadgets are used.

To create applications and systems that are easy to use, it is crucial to understand the user and the context in which the app will be used. Understanding the context helps design systems that anticipate use cases at a relevant time of use. The more unobtrusive and transparent the experience is at the time of use, the better the design. This means the user does not have to think about the device he is using, changes in the environment, or changes in context, and can rely on great functionality and ease of use independent of his situation.