There’s some interesting new data available from Forrester Research today, predicting the development of the computer market over the next five years, covering pc’s, laptops, netbooks and tablet computers. For those who have been following the tremendous success of Apple’s iPad, Forrester’s forecast that such devices will, in five years’ time, occupy roughly a quarter of the market will come as no surprise.
However, perhaps more intriguing is Forrester’s breakdown of the market by 2015, which suggests that most of the tablet share will actually come at the expense of desktop pc – and not the other two portable devices (notebooks and netbooks) with which one might assume it was in direct competition with.
Whatever happens, I expect web developers will be following all these projections with interest and anticipation for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most relevant one however will be the fact that tablet computers such as the iPad utilise a completely different user interface in the touchscreen, and hence will demand a unique approach in terms of web design, which has so far only been a factor with regard to smartphones.
As a rather simple example, consider the fundamental difference between using a mouse pointer and a finger to navigate a website. The latter will surely demand bigger and more spread out buttons for a start, and will therefore have significant impact on the aesthetics of layout and design. Then there remains the question of whether different versions of sites will be designed for tablet computers (operating through an ‘app style’ feature as with iPhone Facebook for example) or if a one-size fits all method will be more popular.
Certain trends with regard to user interfaces in web design already suggest that the anticipation of tablet computing has been a consideration for some time – such as the current popularity of 3D style ‘pushable’ buttons. Nonetheless, one expects that if Forrester’s predictions regarding tablet computers are right (and in a sense if they are wrong, it can only really be because they underestimated tablet popularity – judging by impressive iPad sales), then web developers will have considerable work to do in accommodating the widespread touchscreen interface into their design considerations.
Dejan Levi
