Print Design vs. Web Design: Part 4 - Interactivity

In Part 3 I touched on why, in terms of limitations and composition, print design can never equal web design. In this 4th and final installment, I touch on this point again from a dynamics and interaction standpoint. It would be very easy to say that in print, user/reader interaction is pretty close to nil, and the on the Web, interaction is, well, what makes the Web. Fundamentally I suppose that's true. But do bear in mind that there are print pieces that can be interactive. The difference here isn't so much that there is or isn't interaction, but rather, how much and how dynamic that interaction is. In an "interactive" print piece there's still only a certain amount that you can do. And more importantly, it doesn't change - it's printed after all. On the Web, though, things are less linear and a lot less static. When designing for the Web a designers has to take into account how the user will physically interact with the site. That could mean something as simply as where links are placed and where they lead, or it could mean taking account for the resulting message a user sees after submitting a form, or determining the design and usability of user comments on a blog site. And what if there's more than just text and images? These days it's not uncommon to see video, animation or audio included on a web site. Each of those has to be though of when designing a site too. But perhaps the most important thing is how a user not only uses the site, but how she/he gets there. While the home page of any site is still very important, it's not the only "entry way" to our site. Users doing a search may get to your site through any of your other pages. It's the non-linear quality of the Web that separates from traditional design. Print design is very linear. We read left to right, top to bottom. On the Web we still read left to right, top to bottom, but there's no sequential order. We don't have to start with the home page. We can go straight to the About section or Contact page, or just leave the site altogether. It's this user interaction and user control that marks a significant difference in web design.