Web 2.0 from designer, developer and client perspective

Designer: Web 2.0 is when you have visually large elements (big icons, buttons, etc…), clear navigation, big fonts, cheerful colors and a lot of white space.

Developer: I think Web 2.0 is all about syndication. Having RSS feeds, XML-RPC calls, SOAP, API’s, track backs (link backs), socializing factor (user interactivity such as ratings, comments, etc…), tag clouds and of course extensive usage of AJAX.

Client: No doubt about it, Web 2.0 is when you have big fonts and buttons, warm and friendly colors, clear navigation and cool effects (AJAX) that produces rich end user experience, or so to say “wow factor”.

They are all right, more or less. I’d say I’m closest to developer’s point of view. Being both developer and designer and with intensive communication with clients, most of them don’t have a clue what “Web 2.0″ really stands for. All they know is that it’s cool and trendy term and that they want a “Web 2.0 look and feel”.

There are number of good articles on the net about Web 2.0 buzz, and what exactly Web 2.0 is, so I will not rumble about that but instead I will list couple of good resources for a reading and will cover a bit different aspect of it, Web 2.0 point of view.

Worth of mentioning list of Web 2.0 articles and resources:

What Is Web 2.0 – O’Reilly
Web 2.0 design style
All Things Web 2.0
Web 2.0 validator – This one’s actually very fun (or useful)
Web 2.0 for Designers – Digital Web
Web 2.0 – Wiki
Web 2.0 Design Kit
Web Development 2.0 – by Marc Hedlund from O’Reilly

“Architecture of participation” (Tim O’Reilly)

Definition of Web 2.0 from Wikipedia:

“Web 2.0, a phrase popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004, refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.”

Question	Answer
Collective intelligence?	Designer: Wtf? … CIA ? Developer: Yeah sure, I would say gathering info from various sources and presenting it to the user in understandable format. Client: Hmm… sharing the data? I’m not sure I would like that. I want to keep all off the information to my self and my business. I Don’t want to share it with the competition.
Presentation and Layout?	Designer: Extremely important. CSS table-less design, W3C valid XHTML code, effective and clear navigation, clear content separation and a lot of “white space”. Developer: Separation of business logic and DB layer from presentation layer, usually using templates. Client: Just make it look really nice and friendly. I will show you example website of a competitor. I would like to have on front page registration form so as soon as they come to a website they can register and buy.
Socializing features?	Designer: It’s very useful to have it. I like designing UI’s and icons. Developer: Interactivity with users. This is where the true power of AJAX comes in. I always liked how you can for example rate some picture with those small stars everyone is using without waiting and reloading the page with help the of XMLHttpRequest object. Client: No I don’t want a dating service. Oh… you mean that… yeah it can be useful. That way I can send them emails about new products and service every day.
Rich user experience and RIA?	Designer: Colorful and eye appealing design. RIA (Rich internet applications) is not my type of thing it’s more up to developers. Developer: It’s a future of web. In the last couple of months (years) a number of RIA frameworks have been introduced like Adobe AIR (Apollo), Google Gears, Flex, Microsoft Silverlight, etc… Client: No I don’t need financial services atm.

If you haven’t realized yet, answers were given with a healthy dose of sarcasm :), but are based on my almost decade long experience as a web designer, developer and entrepreneur.

Beta, Beta, Beta…Never get out of Beta

One question for which I still haven’t found an reasonable answer is “Why are all Web 2.0 applications always in BETA phase having “beta” stamp on their logo?”. Here is the list of possible answers to that question:

They are constantly evolving with the help of “Collective intelligence”
“Presentation and Layout” is tightly associated with the “Collective intelligence” and “Socializing features” so improvements are made on daily basis
It’s a never ending story with “Rich user experience and RIA” so basically they will never leave the BETA phase

Maybe you have an answer, but I’d say it’s a trend…. again :).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 8:13 am and is filed under Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.