What do you think of "Web 2.0 Design"?

 

Hi there,

 

I'm a design student, conducting a study into "web 2.0" and how it impacts design on the web.

 

I use quotation marks as whenever I mention "web 2.0" as I have noted people are greatly divided on the subject. I wish to mention that this is a survey, and does not necessarily represent my own views. Some people are adamant that it has nothing to do with design, and that "web 2.0" sums up the advent of new technologies or, even more simply, that "web 2.0" literally means the dawn of a more user-centric age. Others I have heard deny that it ever took place! I sense there is a divide between designers and developers on this issue, with some designers keen to herald this as some kind of design revolution.

 

Whatever you think, there has been an increase of websites designed in this "web 2.0" fashion. Whether this design is intrinsically linked to "web 2.0", or simply used as a facade to represent a modern, functional website remains to be discussed. These websites seem to stand in stark contrast to the flashy gimmicky websites of the dot com boom - perhaps why people are so keen to label them as "2.0" sites under their own umbrella?

 

Anyhow, I was wondering if I could collect your thoughts on what you think of the "web 2.0 design" style. Do you think it has totally revolutionised the way we use the web, or just a silly designer fad? Was it necessary to improve the quality of our web experience? Does it represent good quality design, or is it totally overused? What will come next?

 

As I explained before, when I talk about web 2.0 'design', I'm mean web design that has appeared along with the advent of web 2.0 technologies - a move towards more 'user friendly' and 'user controlled' web experience, such as Facebook, Flickr and You Tube. You'll know what I mean - just think of gradients, stickers, beta tags, shiny plastic buttons, cute icons, simple navigation, bigger text, reflections, more white space and a triumph of content over pixel space. It is a style that is very popular at the minute, and some argue that it's on its way out.

 

Do you think the "web 2.0" design style limits the designer as to what they are able to produce?

 

Please let me know your thoughts, all contributions are valid!

 

Thank you in advance.

Welcome to WDF!

 

There's no such thing as Web 2.0 "design" - Web 2.0 is about communication, networking and user generated content. - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web2.0

Yeah but as Vicky pointed out there seems to be a clear association with the buzz word "web 2.0" regardless or not if it fits that style or even if it has a style.

 

Any good site harnessing current technology I think will fall into that category.

The tools which we use to make a web pages have been available for over 9 years only browsers have changed letting us use more of them, so no new technology is a available to designers. Site design follows a trend as much as anything else but it has nothing to do with web 2.0. Perhaps you should follow the link provided by BlueDreamen because for someone conducting a study on web 2.0 you don't seem all that versed on the topic.

The tools which we use to make a web pages have been available for over 9 years only browsers have changed letting us use more of them, so no new technology is a available to designers. Site design follows a trend as much as anything else but it has nothing to do with web 2.0. Perhaps you should follow the link provided by BlueDreamen because for someone conducting a study on web 2.0 you don't seem all that versed on the topic.

 

Hi, thanks for your contributions, as I say all opinions are valid!

 

Drewster, as I specified I'm conducting a survey into web 2.0 "design", what people think of it and whether it actually exisits - the views represented may not be my own - I simply want to know peoples' opinions. I understand completely that "web 2.0 design" is a fictionalisation, however you can't deny that there are a large amount of websites at the moment designed in a particular fashion - and to call them web 2.0 "design" may be the wrong thing, but that's what people seem to recognise them as. My interest is purely from a design perspective.

At any time there will be sites designed according to a certain fashion; I don't see how the, in my opinion, meaningless classification of "web 2.0" has anything to do with it. If you are talking about the emergence of sites like linked-in, facebook, myspace, wikipedia, youtube, twitter and the like then you have a point, they are part of what you might call the "web 2.0". But these sites do not follow any descernable design template and of some you could even say that they are of a somewhat old fashioned design. Then again the term web 2.0 has been around for about 5 years; I've already seen "web 3.0" mentioned, what that is supposed to encompass I don't know, it will most likely be just as meaningless a distinction as "web 2.0".

So, as you are interested in opinions; my opinion is that "web 2.0 design" is a non existent classification having nothing to do with the "web 2.0" classification and that you have in no way defined what you mean with the term.

I like most people see web 2.0 as how the web developed in terms of easier social communication...as for designs of web 2.0 all that you have mentioned is design trends rather than anything that could actually be seen as web 2.0.

 

youtube, flikr, facebook, myspace, twitter...ect all use web 2,0 technologies in the way that they work, but they don't have a set design style. I actually think facebooks design is quite old, and very late 90's, myspace is just a mess, flikr is quite clean, youtube is like any site that hosts a mass amount of files and is quite annoying to navigate (which by your definition of 2.0 design means youtube is not 2.0)

 

I guess in a way because web 2.0 hit it big when the style of the design was glossy, you could argue that the web 2.0 design is all about the glossy buttons, but it was simply a design trend at the time, rather than something that was invented because of 2.0.

 

You could also argue that because web 2.0 made it more simple for people to communicate and at the time people were designing very simplistic looking sites that web 2.0 = simple clean designs... but again as the term web 2.0 is about development and not about design, it is hard to prove that web 2,0 had anything to do with a design trend that just happened to be around at the time.

 

 

Not that long ago it was a trend to have highly complicated squiggly patterns or grunge type styling all over sites. These were neither simple, clean and really had nothing to do with what people said the 2.0 style was all about at the time. Yet for some reason these new design trends also became hooked into the "web 2.0 design" when people asked for them...

 

So if you ask me, web 2.0 design is really just a term people who don't actually know what web 2.0 is about use when trying to explain they want a current trend of web design.

Always providing top quality information for us noobs Dizi.

 

I always thought web 2.0 was about the style but now you mention the technology used it makes sense.

 

thanks