Interactive Design website examples

Photosynth - Microsofts' preview of their interactive photo library.
Dell Earth - nice fluid website, you have a big impact on what the site does with one click.
Disney - Might not be your thing, but a great interactive website for kids.

I have found that many websites that are targeted for children are the most interactive.

Instructional Design Examples

Blackboard - E-learning resource providers

vUWS - you should all know this one.

ISPI - International Society for Performance Improvement

Instructional Design

The idea is to create an Instructional Environment that will aid a user to acomplish a specific task. It provides a framework for learning.

Instructional design principals involves research into cognition, educational psychology and problem solving.

An important model for creating instructional design material is ADDIE:

Analyze - analyze learner characteristics, task to be learned, etc.
Design - develop learning objectives, choose an instructional approach
Develop - create instructional or training materials
Implement - deliver or distribute the instructional materials
Evaluate - make sure the materials achieved the desired goals

Interactive Design - Definition

Interactive design - simply defined - is the design of a product or system that a user can interact with. Whether it be pushing the button at the traffic lights that will allow you to cross, or using a piece of software to design a poster, both of these rely on the interaction between the user and the product (or system).

We can see that with new Web 2.0 style websites that interactive design plays a huge role in creating these sites. Users are now able to create and 'give' information where as early sites only allow you to 'take' information.

Web 2.0 examples

Here are some examples of Web 2.0 based sites:

- Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia that incorporates the knowledge of online users.
- Youtube - users are able to post video entries, related videos are always shown after watching a video, a great example of interactivity of Web 2.0.
- Facebook - find old friends make new ones. I'm sure everyone is familiar with this one, its one of the most popular Web 2.0 based website you could think of.
- MySpace - see above description.
- CelebrityFix - read any article and make a comment on it.
- WhirlpoolForums - Australian broadband discussion forums. Discuss with other users what ISP they think is best and solve any problems you might be having.

It should be noted that all types of forums could be considered Web 2.0 sites. They provided the interactivity consumers are after to gain information from a very wide audience.

Web 2.0 - where was 1.0?

Web 2.0 is the 2nd emerging generation of the web as we know it. It is interactive, dynamic and allows the user to interact with websites and other users through different interactive mediums; text, pictures and videos. This blog is considered Web 2.0, as is any other blog.

Web 2.o is considered the second iteration for the World Wide Web. There was no Web 1.0 per se although the old generation web pages are now seen in this way.

Web 2.0 means that we are in control of the information we receive and information is created by the users like you or me.