Welcome to Not Invented Here, a new semi-regular series on trends and innovations in interaction design (IxD).

As the field of interaction design takes shape, practitioners are doing a great job of harnessing the familiar to ensure usability and help people meet their goals on the web.

But familiar isn’t good enough for some interaction designers who are willing to throw caution to the wind and try out something new. They’re taking a risk for sure, but some of their innovative solutions work quite well. And a select few work even better than the traditional alternative — trending from obscurity to familiarity — ultimately becoming standards in their own right.

The Not Invented Here series will salute the work of these pioneers, with an eye towards solutions you can immediately bring to bear on your own projects.

For the first two posts, I’ll turn my attention on two “emerged” trends in modern interaction design – mega-dropdowns and super-footers – both of which sound like they’d fit right in as villains in a Godzilla movie.

After that, I’ll take a look at some newer innovations that are making their way to a website near you. Things like accessible direct-manipulation interfaces and a fresh, space-saving interaction technique called pageSlide.

Beyond that, who knows? Perhaps we’ll collectively stumble upon the next great interaction design innovation… and together we can make it the next big trend.

Come back next Monday for part 1 of the series. And if you’re forgetful like me, you can grab our RSS feed or sign-up for email updates so you won’t miss a thing.

P.S. Have an IxD innovation of your own? Post a comment or email me… I’d love to hear about it.