Why tablets will change webdesign fundamentally

So you’re surfing on an iPad. You pay a visit to your favourite discussion board (e.g. Appleinsider) and are annoyed after hitting the wrong page in the disussion the third time. The links are to small, and you don‘t wanna use two-finger-enhancement „just to turn a page“ …

This pretty much sums up, why website-design has to change fundamentally in the coming months. Tablets are a nice thing, right now, the iPad is the only one, that counts (yeah, there are some Android-try-outs like Samsung’s „achievement“ which got it just on par after nearly 8 months) and the surf experience has changed in less than 6 months. Sure, Mobile Safari gives you bigger fonts, but the reading experience is dependant on double tapping the text very often. The genuine discussion board is only readable in landscape mode, and even there you are forced to enhance the comments.

Some websites are very complex and use even wider layouts, which isn’t helpful either, when the fonts are to small.

To sum it up: Yes, surfing with an iPad is fun. But most sites and designs aren’t best for it. I predict a bunch of new designs with bigger fonts, better structual gags and buttons AND links, that are easy to tab. Maybe, the old psd-rendered buttons will see some sort of reanimation. And then there is HTML 5. Imagine the possibilities …