as software and applications have advanced, i think the one thing that hasn’t advanced the way it should is the web browser.

if you put safari, chrome and firefox next to each other, aside from subtle differences, they all pretty much look the same. and, they all pretty much give the user the same web browsing experience.

a bar across the top, tabs, minimize buttons, boring, boring, boring.

i think the web browser should be more visual. it should offer the user multiple sources of information with minimal clicking, and it should be constantly adapting to how the user is using the application.

in the past, i’ve talked about a curated web browsing experience and as time has gone by i’ve come to believe in it’s importance. if there was a set way that webpages were viewed, like on an ipad, it would be a better experience for the users, designers and developers alike.

with all that said, i put together a mock-up of what i think the web browser should look like.

it always takes up the whole screen, with the page you’re currently viewing at front and center displayed at a fixed width. tabs are now open pages on the left. social media is always streaming on the right. backgrounds and foregrounds lighten and darken as the user interacts with the browser. navigation adapts and slides into place.

this is how i want to experience the web.

it’s no secret that people’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. with the onset of status updates, tweets, blogs, articles, etc… it’s becoming more and more difficult to capture someone’s attention for longer than a few seconds. 

unfortunately, i’ve found myself dealing with this problem a lot. i don’t like reading, but i love learning. i have the attention span of a gnat, even if it’s something i’m really interested in. however, this issue has led me to an interesting discovery…

the majority of the internet isn’t easy to read.

granted, i’m completely speaking for myself, but doubt that i’m the only one who feels this way. 

for instance, here’s a snippet from a great article about SXSW 2011 that i read this morning on the guardian:

…this was an article that i was very interested in, but i found myself getting distracted very easily. the lines and paragraphs would blur together, i would go in and out of seeing shapes instead of lines of words, and the font just isn’t that easy for me to read.

so, out of curiosity, i went over to the NY times and grabbed a snippet from a random article:

…easier to read. the paragraphs are broken up a little more, there’s a higher line-height, but again the font was so small that i found myself struggling to read along, not because of my vision, but because of letter-spacing and font.

now, i know that the two publications i’ve mentioned are traditionally newspapers, so i understand their need to continue to have the look and feel of what their customers are traditionally used to. and, i get that articles need to be smaller and more compact if there is a lot of content. but, i’m beginning to realize that it is this reason that i’ve never once been interested in reading a newspaper to begin with.

one of my favorite sites on the internet is information architects. and they are just that, architects of information. they have a wonderful app for the ipad, called writer.

i went over to their site and took a snippet of one of their articles:

it was exactly how i thought it would be, extremely readable.

a large title and opening paragraph to capture the attention of the reader, immediately followed by an infographic, and then short, concise paragraphs with a large line-height, with the important parts highlighted in bold. they even put how long it should take to read the article just below the title.

an open letter to writers and publications on the internet:

dear writers and publications on the internet,

if you want to continue to have readership, start making your sites more readable.

sincerely, parker