Format Thinking

Last year I attended a very insightful talk in London by Scott Seaborn on ‘Format Thinking’ for mobile devices. ‘Format Thinking’ is to make better use of new technology without copying from old technology. A design problem that repeats itself throughout history.

Take for example the first printing press which printed long scrolls, the same format used for centuries before with pen and ink. It took some time before the printing press used the ‘page’ format we all know today. Even now websites are navigated around the idea of ‘pages’ which we have borrowed from print.

Another example of ‘format thinking’ would be the world’s first TV advert in 1941.

We can see how the advert fails to understand the new TV format, borrowing from the radio (voiceover) format and print (static image) format. Marshall McLuhan’s quote from the book ‘Understanding Media‘ rings true.

We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us

About 15 years later the first British TV advert was much improved.

The design journey has only begun with mobile devices and it is advancing at a much faster pace than any other publishing format before. This advancement in mobile technology (iPhone launch in 2007, just eight years ago) makes it very easy to fall into the old format thinking as it’s such a short space of time. Most mobile devices have been through more upgrades than the software we use to design for them. Designers are hindered by their current tools/software which were originally built for the print format; for example Photoshop, Quark, Indesign etc.

‘Format Thinking’ highlights a design problem worldwide; much R&D is needed to explore opportunities and develop new tools to take advantage of the changing mobile format. Our current software is limited and as yet hasn’t developed enough to keep up with the advances in mobile technology and design.