In Multimedia Design and Development a major part of any project is the design and development of the interface. Be it web, CD ROM, Console, or Device.

One of the biggest questions that I get asked, and often find asking myself is, where does the line between static interface, imagery etc and programmable interface elements get drawn.

Especially today with businesses awaking to the idea of the "web2.0" environment. Although AJAX and Flash has been around for years its only within more recent times that businesses are starting to incorporate this style of interface design.

My generic answer to questions like this, in todays growing web interactivity market is:

The web interface needs to be designed with interactivity in mind. This being said, it may not be a good idea for a traditional graphic designer to design the interface, because they result may be a good looking interface, however it will be a flat ‘simple’ interface.

Interfacing of this style is out of date. Web interfacing today incorporates interactive elements such as accordion style menu’s, tab style paging and overlapping elements.

First look at what the exact elements need to be on the page, then see where they can be group or overlapped etc.

Some non invasive ways of hiding and displaying more content on a page than usual without cluttering the interface, is mouse over event areas and sliding tabs.

So thats my initial thoughts, but I would love to open this up to discussion.

What do you think?
Should there be a line between static and dynamic interface elements?
Is the traditional static interface being phased out?

I tend to agree with this  - In my case its about time - trying to read everything on tangle, the newspapers, radio, tv - its info overload - when I get on the computer I just want to read the main issues - then its up to me I I want to dig deeper - thats why tangle is good to be seemingly drilling down if you want not having to

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