Cards as an interface metaphor have been around for a while thanks to Twitter and Google. But, Vox has recently made their cards embeddable and are working with other publishers to distribute them, and i think we should be thinking of Cards as the atomic unit of digital content. So it’s time to get deeper into cards as they evolve in the wild. (side note: Good interview with Ezra Klein covering the why’s of their card strategy)
Overview of the design metaphor
Intercom.io’s manifesto-ish take on cards is probably the best place to start.
But, not surprisingly, Benedict Evans might have been onto the trend first.
Koi Vinh takes a stab at defining cards. Focuses on presentation and the introduction of 3rd party data.
Taylor Davidson has a good overview of where cards came from. Importantly, he teases out the difference between the design/presentation issues and the the idea that the card itself can be platform.
The Rise of Mobile Cards by Cezary Pietrzak is a great primer
Jerry Cao at TNW provides a design-centric overview of how cards fit into the UI patterns.
Tools and Platforms
Cardstack.io is building a whole ecosystem around Cards.
Wildcard is news app (I think). It’s also an SDK and platform for creating and viewing cards.
Citia is a content marketing platform that uses cards as the primary UI interface.
