In this 8 minute interview with Brad Frost, mobile web strategist and front-end designer located in Pittsburgh, PA we talk about Web Professional Trends for 2014 including how change is the new norm and:
* How we must prepare for and embrace constant change
* How our current device landscape has a plethora of desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablets, feature phones, smartphones, and more
* His vision for a future-friendly web
* How the rapid pace of technological change is accelerating, and our current processes, standards, and infrastructure are quickly reaching their breaking points
* While this era of ubiquitous connectivity creates new challenges, it also creates tremendous opportunities to reach people wherever they may be
* The need for laser focus
* The need for agnostic content
* The future is ours to make… friendly
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More About a Future-Friendly Web
According to Brad, It is time to move towards a friendlier future. We live in a world that’s exploding with technological innovation and the rapid pace of change is only accelerating. We’re at the forefront of a new revolution in which we are unprepared for. Before we can take advantage of all the exciting possibilities technology has to offer, we must first change the way we think.
Enter the Future Friendly Manifesto. In order to become more future-friendly, we must:
Acknowledge and embrace unpredictability.
Think and behave in a future-friendly way.
Help others do the same.
I want to expound on what I think it means to be future-friendly and why you need to care.
Provide Real Worth
People’s capacity for bullshit is rapidly diminishing. As technology becomes more ubiquitous, people are getting used to the idea of interacting solely with things they want to interact with whenever they damn well please.
For companies and creators who have long enjoyed force-feeding their own flavor of bullshit to the masses, this is a very scary thing. However, this doesn’t need to be the case. The opportunity exists for creators to reach people, however it can’t be in the insincere methods of the past. Instead, we must deliver real worth.
Content Like Water
In order to provide real worth, we must deliver strong, purposeful content to people wherever they may be. Currently, this includes a plethora of mobile devices, tablets, e-readers and more, but this is just the beginning.
Instead of chasing down the latest and greatest device of the month, focus your efforts on creating worthwhile content that is properly structured to go anywhere. Because it will be going everywhere.
“We need to build smarter content, not smarter containers.” — Stephanie Rieger
Beyond the Desktop
One small step for man. One giant step in the right direction. I’m in the web world and I think it’s amazing that 50% of web designers still don’t consider mobile. I hate to break it to you, but people aren’t lining up around the block to get the latest Dell tower. It’s time to acknowledge the diversity of connected devices and prepare for even more diversity. We don’t know what the future holds, but we need to be ready. Take that first step in the right direction and begin designing for diversity.
Pragmatic Idealism
No one has the answers. In fact, we all have a hell of a lot more questions. We know that we can’t predict the future and that things can’t change overnight. But we can move in a more future-friendly direction. And that’s going to take all of us. It’s going to require rethinking how we work, the tools we use and most importantly the things that we make. Let’s advocate for better tools: CMSes, browsers, design tools and better interplay between devices.
Into the Great Wide Open
Let’s embrace the unpredictability of the future. Let’s create meaningful content for people and encourage others to do the same. The future is ours to make —friendly.
Disruption will only accelerate. The quantity and diversity of connected devices—many of which we haven’t imagined yet—will explode, as will the quantity and diversity of the people around the world who use them.
Our existing standards, workflows, and infrastructure won’t hold up. Today’s onslaught of devices is already pushing them to the breaking point. They can’t withstand what’s ahead.
Proprietary solutions will dominate at first. Innovation necessarily precedes standardization. Technologists will scramble to these solutions before realizing (yet again) that a standardized platform is needed to maintain sanity.
The standards process will be painfully slow. We will struggle with (and eventually agree upon) appropriate standards. During this period, the web will fall even further behind proprietary solutions.
A New Hope
But there’s hope. While we can’t know exactly what the future will bring, we can:
Acknowledge and embrace unpredictability.
Think and behave in a future-friendly way.
Help others do the same.
The future is ours to make —friendly.
Undersignums
Signatures of the names that follow
Luke Wroblewski
Scott Jenson
Brad Frost
Jeremy Keith
Lyza D. Gardner
Scott Jehl
Stephanie Rieger
Jason Grigsby
Bryan Rieger
Josh Clark
Tim Kadlec
Brian LeRoux
Andrea Trasatti
Couldn’t agree more with Brad’s philosophy, its an ideal system like this that will be what helps move us foreword. This kind of web practice is what people need and want all at the same time. I have found that my grandparents tolerance for sketchy business practices is much greater than my parents or even my tolerance which is almost none. Its nice to have an industry so willing and accepting of the future.