A number of us at Flightpath recently attended the conference, The Future of Web Design. 

While there were many informative presentations, I was reminded of just how young “the Web” is as a field.  

In his lecture on “The Future of Web App Interface Design,” Ryan Singer of 37 signals made numerous points as to how to use text sizing and interface around the screen to enhance a user’s understanding of their applications. 

I appreciated that he is bringing such knowledge to light, but I couldn’t help but shake my head, “We knew this stuff decades ago for server-side application design!” 

The web is very young, indeed.  On the one hand, it is an exciting, unbounded space where we can explore movement and art and interface; but at the same time, this idea of “novelty and freshness” often blinds designers and developers to what we have learned from years of software development and interface design.  The computer and IT industry has been available for the masses since the 1970s--we’ve certainly learned a lot in that time. 

I have to wonder, are we designers so arrogant because of our relatively new sandbox (i.e.,“the web”) that we cannot look to the lengthy history of Human Factors (or Ergonomics) and Software Design and use it to our advantage?  Does our pride condemn us to reinventing the wheel? 

Do we really think that text sizing and placement as usability enhancements is a new revelation?

OK, I’m mounting my high horse a little bit and need to take a step down.  Yes,  the web is a new, wonderful playground that offers many options that your regular old server-side apps do not.  

The possibilities of social interaction + application are so exciting.  They’re something we’ve never seen or done before (in the long history of development I mean).

Let’s be clear--I love designing for this playground; that’s why I do it.  I do think it would behoove us, though, to give some props to the history of development and our design forefathers, a nod to the psychologists who originally opened our eyes to Learning Theory, Cognition and Perception. 

So, thank you, B.F. Skinner, for teaching us how to learn and about human behavior. 

Thank you, World War II fighter plane designers, for keeping your pilots in mind and for teaching us the psychology and production of the man-machine organism.  Your work led us to the Ergonomics and Human-Computer Interaction field. 

Thank you, Douglas Engelbart, for imagining how information can be displayed on all kinds of screens and contexts. 

Thank you, researchers at MIT and Xerox.  Thank you, IBM, Apple, and Microsoft for pushing technology to what we know it to be today. ...and a multitude of others not contained in this blog post.

The web has reached its adolescence because of your efforts. 

We are still child-like with wonderment, but we are also growing up and becoming self-aware.  

We can do so much, and the possibilities are limited only to what we can imagine.  We should be looking ahead, using what we know from our history, cognition, perception and design to make the web come alive.  

We now realize that people actually have to use this stuff. 

P.S  -- If you want some serious schooling, check out some eye-movement heat maps -- but that's a whole other post.

I am from Reading, PA. Reading is a place where, despite the protests of their wives, the men play rec league basketball until their legs fall off in their late 40s at Southern Jr. Hs. gym because we just love to be part of the game.

It's a place where they gather in local pubs after high school games and fathers tell their sons about the local greats who came before them as if re-telling the history of Achilles and Odysseus assaulting Troy: Football Hall of Famer Lenny Moore, the NBA's Stu Jackson, NBA Player Donyell Marshall, Tampa Bay Buc's John Gilmore, current Miami Dolphins QB Chad Henne, and in this year of the Titans, Kerry Collins.

I have been following Kerry's exploits since I was a paperboy for the Reading Times and he moved to Wilson High School. Throughout high school in the late 80s, When my brother Ben and I would get up before the crack of dawn to deliver the newspaper it seemed like not a day would pass that didn't have a Kerry Collins highlight referenced on the front page of the sports section.

When I attended Penn State at the same time as Kerry in the 90s, his exploits were duly recorded in the Daily Collegian newspaper.

Now I turn to the web for almost all my news. As a professional in the web industry I am tracking how the web grows and its various trends. The web is fulfilling its promise of digital media by allowing me to follow national and local news.

However, there is a greater lesson here. Once given up for dead as an NFL QB, Kerry has risen from the ashes like a phoenix. Now poised at 10-0 as the Titans QB to make an historic run at an undefeated season, even has Mercury Morris of the record holding Dolphins is applauding his efforts! As I am writing this blog post with ESPN on the TV, Sportscenter is talking about Kerry Collins as an MVP candidate.

And you know what, I hope it doesn't happen but even if he does lose a game, Kerry has proven that you can take the punches of life and get back up and keep going despite the odds, the pain, or your age. He has secured his place in lore, at least in the hearts of the fans back in PA, where I know fathers are telling their sons about his Odyssey from Wilson HS to the NFL record books.

Like Kerry, many of us have had our demons, our ups and downs in business and in life. These are tough economic times for our nation. Kerry has proven that if we are honest with ourselves, continue to work hard and stick to it, success will follow.

I leave you with an inspirational clip from another mythical figure from my own youth, Rocky Balboa, as kids all of us went by his statue many times on our way to a game down on broad street. Kerry already demonstrates this Rocky Philosophy, but perhaps Vince Young , Wall Street and the rest of America should consider it as well:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3710467

With all of the interest in mobile marketing, social media and the like, it’s almost shocking to be reminded that email is still considered by many marketers to yield the best ROI of any tactic in driving sales.

According to a recent report from eMarketer, nearly four out of 10 search engine advertisers surveyed gave email the highest marks.

Though, of course, consumers worldwide are pickier than ever about which emails they’re bothering to open.   This reality presents two important challenges to email marketers:

1) Effective Subject Lines: Well-written subject lines have always been a key element in effective email campaigns but now that consumers are opening fewer emails than ever, this becomes doubly important.  Research shows that you’ll have the best success with subject lines of 35 characters or less.  And once you’ve got your line written, it’s in your best interest to thoroughly test variants to multiple list samples in order to identify the subject lines that perform optimally.

2) Trust and Brand Building: If your brand, product or service has a strong positive connotation to it, recipients of emails will certainly be more likely to open the mail.   Hence, it’s important to make every piece of communication valuable, purposeful and compelling.   This necessity also filters down to your product itself, associated retail or customer service touch points, and the totality of your online presence.

I’m confident that you can relate to your own personal experience as I describe mine… As I approach 2009, the emails that I continue to subscribe to, open, and occasionally click-through on, are those that provide something that I’m genuinely interested in from folks that I trust.