5 changes I would like to see in 2010
About the Author
Mike Rogers is a Web Developer who is currently at University studying Web Technologies. He also is the founder of Full On Design. He has several years experience freelancing and you can follow him on Twitter (Rogem002).
2009 has been a somewhat interesting year for the internet; it’s become more mobile & more user friendly. However here are a few ideas I have had over the year, which I would like to see arrive in 2010.
Video Stream Caching
One of the big annoyances I have with streaming video files (normally on websites such as YouTube & Megavideo) is whenever I go to jump to another section of the video I lose what I currently have already loaded. It would be really useful if I could quickly go back to the section I’ve previously loaded.
This is a mock up I done, the video I used is from RayWilliamJohnson
I’m quite sure this would need to be implemented by the software, but I can’t see how it would be difficult to add.
Facebook – Pop-up chat
Pop-ups are a double edge sword; on the one hand they have been used incorrectly and become an utter annoyance. But on the other, they also can drastically improve a users experience with a website. For example the Facebook chat system is very inconvenient as I have to be looking at a Facebook page to talk to people. On a big screen this might not be a big issue, but on a small screen this makes it surprisingly difficult to multi-task.
Oh noes! I can’t see the chat & watch the video
However, if Facebook make the chat system as a desktop application or just available in a pop-up I suspect that would solve issue.
JavaScript Library Integrated into browsers
It seems silly that I have to keep re-downloading the same file (A Javascript Library) to make a webpage more exciting. I would love to see not just jQuery, but most JavaScript libraries integrated into browsers (maybe as a add-on or something?) to speed up the download times of webpages.
On the other hand, it could be time to consider a new browser based language which is designed to make surfers & developers lives easier. For example adding a new attribute to html forms which allowed for browser specific (so people with screen readers will not be disadvantaged) validation.
<form> <fieldset> <label>Phone Number: <input name="price" type="text" value="090 111 050" /></label> </fieldset> </form>
OpenID/Facebook Connect – More widely adopted
I hate having to sign up to websites, especially when I could just as easily use a login details from a single source. It would be really cool if more websites allowed for a “one click registration” option.
Adobe Flash – Video Player Standardization
One of my biggest pet hates is going onto a nice website just to find features I expect to find, or actions I believe are normal are just not present on the video players. For example I think it is normal for a click on a video to mean “pause” and a double click to go to full screen mode. I think this is just something Web Developers need to consider.