What exactly is a digital destination? It’s really more of a concept and an ideal than a specific set of ideals — at least at this point.

That’s what makes digital destinations so ephemeral, you know when you’re on one, but you’re not exactly sure what makes them so memorable.

A Brief History of  Interactivity

With a digital destination, there is interaction. Websites are not traditional documents. This is the culmination of mass communication and documentation.

Take it way back and there were cave drawings, which served their purpose — though there was a slight issue with portability.

Fast forward, you have handwritten scrolls. These were definitely more portable, but there was now an ever so small issue with reproduction.

Fast forward, you have the printing press. Now there are documents for the masses, but they are in bound books, not really interactive. Not only that, but these books weren’t cheap, so people didn’t want to ruin them.

Fast forward, you now have affordable printing. People can now slightly interact with their documents — at least to the extent that they can draw on them.

Fast forward, you now have the Internet. Finally, we’re at the stage where people can interact with documents, can influence their design and can truly experience the content. That’s just it, for people to learn, they don’t need to just sit there and quietly absorb it — they need to experience it!

This level of interaction sets the basis for a digital destination — more on what exactly that means later.