While developing a design interface for a new project, we're discovering a real world tension between guiding users towards content while fostering opportunity (and freedom) for exploration. We're charged then with creating an interface that is both compelling and clearly functional. But this ain't Al Gore's old internet anymore. Today's user is more interface savvy and increasingly impatient. Interfaces that obstruct will be circumvented or simply avoided. And with the navigational acumen of a public who has mobile devices seemingly welded to their palms, we are presented with both opportunity and challenges to maintain their gaze without insulting their sensibilities.
Combined with advances in platform development, designers are increasingly freed to allow content and instinct to guide interface design. And while we obviously don't all share the same levels of experience navigating digital interfaces, even designing to a broad spectrum of users can now rely on design that facilitates more that it guides.
It's important to remind ourselves that we've all been playing around on the internet for a while now. We get it.