Skip Intro: the Phenomenon

Now that you have reached this point, the time has come to explain the skip intro phenomenon, and its impact on our design society. In this issue’s cover story, we will explore the skip intro effect and go over the possible future scenarios. Get ready for four pages of skipping intros.

The primary notion of the skip intro effect comes from the old days, when flash animations were first introduced. A lack of understanding concerning usability and proper integration of said flash animation lead to increased waiting times, doing little to improve the web experience.

The answer was born in the shape of the skip intro-button. It merely provided you with the ability to skip the intro, paving the way for flash intros en masse.

Not all of you see this as a major construction in your day-to-day operations. But this skip intro phenomenon has indeed left a footprint on our design culture. These days it seems acceptable to immerse your product with a lot of crap, distracting you from that which matters most: the actual product.

One of the strongest of examples of this influence is known as the feature train. It seems that someone once interpreted the wish of the consumer to be more features on their products. This immersed us into a world where a good product gets shipped with all these features and so-called functionalities, most of which are compromises of actually usable additions. Just think of the calendar on your mobile phone; in most cases the word usable never comes to mind.

For some reason many companies hop on board the feature train and add these features, thinking we will choose for the product with the most items listed in the product specs. But that doesn’t explain why the iPod is our most favorite mp3-player, even though it sports one of the smallest feature-sets known today.

The products of today cloud their strengths, increasing their weaknesses by offering more compromises. But the main thing we ask ourselves is this; how will the skip intro phenomenon influence our design culture of the future?

The answer to this question, and some more insights are given in the second part of this cover story, Skip Int(r)o: the Future». Time to skip the page…