4 ways the iPad changes web design forever

Lets forecast how the iPad will change how websites are designed. Here’s the top four things which change the game for website designers:

1. Adoption rates that makes you wish you bought Apple stocks

The iPhone is the icing and mobile is the cherry – the iPad will be the cake.

Despite hype, analysts concur that the iPad will follow the same hockey-stick adoption as the iPhone. From day one, it was common for websites to have an iPhone-friendly alternative. Now it’s also almost expected. Often websites don’t even care about mobile support. At a bonus, once a web page is iPhone-compatible it’s also 90% ready for other mobile platforms. The iPhone is the icing and mobile is the cherry – the iPad will be the cake.

2. A display you can poke a finger (or ten) at

Get ready for stiff necks – we’re now designing for 768-by-1,024.

Resolution wise, the iPad has a display of 1,024-by-768 pixels – interesting right? Apple didn’t choose a 16:9 ratio (optimal for video) but went for the traditional computer spec. So in terms of websites, nothing changed right? We’ve been designing for 1,024-by-n since 2006. Wrong! Remember the keynote? (I do. I watched it 50 times.) Ideal viewing for websites, is holding the iPad vertically. Get ready for stiff necks – we’re now designing for 768-by-1,024. Those folk that brought out the computer with the vertical display were from the future! Plus, with rotation, fluid layouts will be essential. The 960 grid is going to replaced by something new.

3. A new way to interact

When using a keyboard and mouse your eyes follow the cursor. With the iPad, there is no cursor as such, guiding your eyes. With this new perception, UI and UX rules change.

Interaction with the iPad is via direct multi-touch. Imagine reading this website now and just pointing to links to go there. There is going to be a whole new field of interaction design for web designers to explore. When using a keyboard and mouse your eyes follow the cursor. With the iPad, there is no cursor as such, guiding your eyes. With this new perception, UI and UX rules change.

Usability labs everywhere, have taught us that running navigation across the top or side of a website is most user-friendly. It may apply when clicking a link is as easy as tapping it. Context navigation is likely going to get a lot of love. Methods like the page-peel on our homepage will become one of the next design trends. Hover-states are not needed. And who knows – Apple will potentially enable the iPad websites to take advantage of multi-touch!

4. Safari setting the standards

For the iPhone, we expect web-surfing to be inferior to a computer. For the iPad, we expect it to be superior.

Finally, it’ll be interesting to see what version of Safari the iPad has. For those cool-kids (who have played around with it, and designed a website for the iPhone), you know when it comes to Safari, apples ain’t apples. Now, although the iPhone has Safari, it’s not the same Safari you run from a desktop on your Mac – it’s Mobile Safari. When it comes to front-end development there are differences. For example Mobile Safari doesn’t handle “Fixed Positioning” natively, not to mention the lack of support for the Flash Player. For the iPhone, we expect web-surfing to be inferior to a computer. For the iPad, we expect it to be superior. The iPad’s built for web-browsing after all!

Summary

My predictions are the world will eat the Apple iPad and swallow the core. It’s going to trigger a whole new wave of web standards. The iPad could actually become the defacto standard to design towards. The fact that websites will also look good on a computer will be the cherry. Now.. someone just give me OmniGraffle and TextMate for the iPad and I can let my laptop get dusty!