Eco Zoo

EcoZoo is a recent addition to an increasingly long line of impressive 3D interactives appearing online. Most of these have been made possible with performance and rendering advances in the Flash Player and 3D libraries such as PaperVision3D which have popped up to take advantage of them.

What interests me is that it wasn’t that long ago that people were scoffing at the thought of 3D interfaces and mocking them for their inherent usability issues and gimmickery. While the gimmick label is still fair, it may not be in the near future. With the barrier to entry dropping by the day, building a 3D interface is no longer the realm for the coding elite. Although we’re likely to see a large amount of experimentation at first, as thoughtful designers with a care for user experience pick up this technology, solid design and interaction patterns should emerge that will raise the bar over time - just as we’ve seen with normal 2D websites in the past 10 years. Although you could argue it’s not fully 3D, ‘coverflow‘ as seen in Apple’s iTunes and iPhone could be seen as an early 3D interface pattern that’s been picked up by the masses and can now be found on a plethora of sites, webapps and widgets.

Although 3D interfaces will only be appropriate for certain types of content, I’m excited about seeing how designers will start taking advantage of this technology in their everyday work.