S P A R K L I N G   S A M P L E S

A brief tour of the channels already online will provide an excellent overview of effective strategies for publishing dynamic online content. As you may have noticed, when channels are in "webtop" mode, the channels are present on the screen without the familiar netscape frame, or "chrome". Given the freedom of chromeless design, many content providers have chosen to reinvent their own web wheels, exploring new interface designs for web content. c|net's channel provides one example of this: articles appear in a space that isn't quite a "window", per se, but a space with the suggestion of a frame, and custom-created scroller buttons. For a navigation menu, they've embellished on the visual vernacular of traditional applications-based menu design: each section button, when clicked, reveals the selection of articles available in that subject. The technology magazine Fast Company has launched a channel that features an alternative route for reading and scrolling through text-based articles. The various iterations of scrolling widgets we've seen are just a scratch on the surface of what we can expect to see in the future. The Fast Company channel also succeeds in hacking away at the corners of the rigid rectilinear grid. A gently curving background, as well as the obtuse angle at which this picture is set, creates a fluidity on the screen. Curving elements, and images and text presented askew from the x.y coordinates contribute to an implied sense of movement on the screen--even when these elements are static.

-> C O N C L U S I O N

1   back then	2   channel design	3   interface	4   live content
	5   kinematics	6   bit budget	7   samples	8   conclusion