Getting Out of Our Ruts

In this 2014 talk, Jen Simmons, a designer known for The Web Ahead podcast about changing technologies and the future of the web, looks at how we lay out web pages. In the early years of the web there was a lot of experimentation and variation in where content went on a page. Then designers settled into a handful of patterns and stayed there for over a decade.

It wasn’t until responsive design arrived that new ideas for page layout started appearing. With new CSS properties for layout landing in browsers, Simmons suggests we may be about to see a bigger renaissance in layout design patterns.

The talk walks through where we have been, where we might be going, and how to design better for the true medium at hand. Its learning questions ask how we can make better use of the space inside the glass rectangle, and what layout innovations could help users find and focus on what they want.