Great Web Design Examples

There are a wide variety of websites on the internet, some are read only sites and others allow a lot more interaction. The following are just some examples of great interactive design websites on the internet.

Adidas Australia Website

Adidas home page consists of a set of pictures which only when you scroll over them does any information appear. This forces you to interact with the site in order to find the information you are after.
view this site at: http://www.adidas.com/au/shared/home.asp

Coca-Cola Australia


The Australian Coca-Cola Website is similar to the Adidas website as you have to scroll over pictures and diagrams in order to receive the information you require. The site is easy to navigate through, while also being easy to read and understand.
View this site at: http://www.cocacola.com.au/csol/

The Good Food fight - Eat Better America


The Good Food fight is a website set up by Eat Better America, allows you to have a virtual food fight with a chosen character. You are able to pic the type of food you want to throw, the person you want to verse and with the use of the mouse you are able to throw food at the person, while they throw food at the screen. This is a great example of an interactive design website.
View this site at: http://thegoodfoodfight.com/

Sketch Swap

The Sketch Swap website allows you to do just that sketch and swap picture online. The site opens to blank sketch pad, where you use the mouse as your pencil and you are able to draw anything you want. After you have finished, you simply name your sketch and then share it with the rest of the world.
View this site at: http://www.sketchswap.com/

The Graffiti Archaeology

The Graffiti Archaeology website allows you to interact and see how graffiti walls across America have changed over the years. This site allows you to flick through various stages these walls have gone through. Giving you a running commentary of the history of the wall while also allowing you to see some of the magnificent pieces of work.
Visit this site at: http://www.otherthings.com/grafarc/

Defining Interactive Design

Interaction Design is the design of spaces for human communication and action. Allowing humans to relate to a program, which responds to its users. Interaction Design is made up of a fusion of several things, rather than just one, these include sound, motion, images etc.

In an interview Gillian Smith, she gives the following definition of interaction design,
“In the same way that industrial designers have shaped our everyday life through objects that they design for our offices and for our homes, interaction design is shaping our life with interactive echnologies, computers, telecommunications, mobile phones, and so on. If I were to sum up interaction design in a sentence, I would say that it’s about shaping our everyday life through digital artefacts, for work, for play, and for entertainment.” (Smith, 11)

According to Nathan Shedroff, Interactive Design can be broken down into four main spectrums, each as important as the other. These are:

Feedback and Control - Focusing on how much control the audience has over the outcome or the rate, sequence or type of action and how much feedback exits in the interface.

Creative Experience and Productivity - Creative Experiences allow a user, creator, or participant to make, do or share something with others. Some experiences can be used more productively than others, but being creative and producing something are typically more interesting, entertaining and fulfilling activities.

Adaptive Experiences - Adaptive technologies are those that change the experience based on the behaviour of the user, reader, consumer, or actor.

Communicative Experience - Provides opportunities to meet others, talk with them, and share their personal stories and options, are always viewed as valuable and interesting. These experiences involve two or more people.
(Shedroff, 10-11)

Basically Interactive Design refers to the moulding of products and services which allow you to interact and experience a particular situation to the full extent, both physically and mentally.

References:

Shredroff, Nathan. Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory Design. 1994. pg 1-15.

Smith, Gillian Crampton. “Forward” What Is Interaction Design? 2002. pg 7-20