Turbomilk

Web 2.0-styled design

Author: Yegor Gilyov
26 October 2006

I will start with stating that I am not a fan of web 2.0.  I consider this term to be rather ambiguous. No, I am not against social networks, I would vote for AJAX with both hands, and I am writing this article straight to our blog. It makes no sense to me why one would need web 2.0 if not just for fooling venture capitalists. However, regardless whether we like it or not, this term enters our life and our clients start asking us about “web 2.0-styled” design.

And what is “web 2.0-styled” design? Letters pictured with reflections? Rounded corners? Let’s drop these cliche’s for being infinitesimal and consider some examples. I took some liberty to compile a short list of the most vibrant, as I see them, representatives of the new wave in web design.

As I was working on the list I managed to formulate my first finding: the most popular resources are not necessarily the best examples of sophisticated visual design. I came across such “gems” as flickr but there are much more sites with C-rated design. Please note that I am not talking here about the rigidly looking but still neat and convenient interfaces of Google’s projects. Still I get tears in my eyes by just looking at new Yahoo. But where Yahoo benefits from scrutinized logic of the interface other projects like, for instance, LiveJournal lack both beauty and usability. And there are plenty of such sites, including very popular resources.

But let’s stop considering the downsides. Let’s look at the bright side. Here is the list of five thoroughly selected examples of new style design:

www.flickr.com

www.blinksale.com

www.skype.com

www.digg.com

www.blogger.com

As you can see, it is rather hard to locate common attributes in the visual style of these sites. How flickr is like Skype? What digg and Blogger have in common in terms of design? A fresh look at these remarkable resources reveals complete failure of generalizations like “six items of web 2.0 design”.

Let’s try to formulate the attributes of this era in more general terms:

1. Interaction-oriented design. The interaction of a user with a “common” site is merely limited to hopping from page to page. The user’s interaction with an online shop is more complex, especially in closing a deal. However, if merchandise appears to be attractive, the user gets ready to overcome some difficulties in order to obtain it. Therefore, in web 1.x the main task of a web designer was serving contents rather than managing interactions. In web 2.0 everything is different: without interactions no contents will appear since it is generated by the users themselves. The revealed necessity to simplify the user-to-site interaction is successfully addressed with AJAX, a rather conveniently emerged technology.

2. Only for web. A web 2.0 project, as a rule, lives only online and demonstrates itself only on computer screens. Office door posters, ads in the press, memorabilia with logos — who needs it anymore? It does not mean that a web 2.0 project’s logo must contain flares, reflections and other complex visual effects but it may as well have them.

3. Down with pathos. Web 2.0 site is not a branch of an office with marble floors and golden chandeliers. Such project may not have a regular office space with all services offered a few clicks away. Often — absolutely for free. Therefore a web 2.0 site can afford a luxury of being “not so serious” about design. I think this is one of the reasons of an unprecedented hype exuded by techno-maniacs in mass promotion of web 2.0.  However, to have a brilliantly frivolous appeal, the visual design of a site requires quite a serious approach. Unfortunately, many people do not get it, hence the magnitude of crippled design that I referred to in the very beginning.

Web 2.0 is like a big elephant. Some fumble with its legs or tail and say: web 2.0 is like round columns, or web 2.0 is like a rope… Three attributed described above is an attempt to step away and look at the whole picture from the perspective of the visual design and without reasserting such details as rounded corners, shades, reflections, etc. As you can see, the picture before us is truly exciting: participation in web 2.0 projects gives us, designers, the possibility to make web more convenient, more humane, and true to life. This is not just a good opportunity — it is a challenge to our abilities accepted with enthusiasm.