MeyerBros

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web 2.0 forever and a half (or not)

10 Responses to “web 2.0 forever and a half (or not)”

1. Carl Says:
   

   April 22nd, 2006 at 1:04 pm

   Why do you call it web 2.0? My understanding is that Web 2.0 generally refers to user-generated/social web applications like Flickr, Youtube, blogs, MySpace, etc. According to wikipedia, “Web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that let people collaborate, and share information online.” In addition:

   Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997). They often allow for mass publishing (web-based social software). The term may include blogs and wikis. To some extent Web 2.0 is a buzzword, incorporating whatever is newly popular on the Web (such as tags and podcasts), and its meaning is still in flux.

2. eric Says:
   

   April 22nd, 2006 at 7:22 pm

   true. i’ve always thought of web 2.0 mainly in terms of the design trends that have come with the tech trends you’re describing. lighter greys and blues, all with subtle or no texturing and light, soft gradients. often larger fonts, but always slick san-serif ones. look at the color palette, the light grey gradient with slight texture as a background for the light blue gradient with content. this blog, for example, right now, is entirely what i’m talking about. the large blue banner with a soft gradient, again on the grey background, eveything with soft curves. large san-serif fonts - even for login and posting screens. pure web 2.0 in ters of design trends.

   you’ll notice that even my color palette is heavily influenced, and i do use mainly san-serif fonts, but i like to think i put some sort of twist on it - make each site something unique - and i never give you the whole package (you wont find curved boxes or gradients on my sites).

   that’s what i’m talking about.

3. carl Says:
   

   April 22nd, 2006 at 10:30 pm

   Ah. How typical. Leave it to me to notice technical functionality, and you to notice design. And me to be so clueless as to misunderstand entirely

   Generally I think I like the web 2.0 design trends too. To me certain things (like large friendly sans fonts or understated gradients) represent functional design - that is, design that primarily serves to make the content as usable and accessible as possible, without drawing undue attention to itself. Which I like.

   I also think your blog is quite usable and functional, without being “generic web 2.0″. (Though I’m not personally a big fan of splash pages. Mostly because I don’t use bookmarks for sites I frequently visit - I find it faster to type in the address bar and use the browser’s history-completion - and so I usually end up clicking through the splash page on every visit.)

   The wiki is alright too, though as I’ve said on the developmentblog I think it loses a little more in terms of usability just because of low color contrasts and too-small font.

4. mennonot Says:
   

   April 26th, 2006 at 8:09 pm

   Hey meyer brothers. I like the new sandbox. And such a nifty discussion. I just gotten sold on the whole Web 2.0 thing myself recently. For a long time I had just thought of it as another buzzword. And then I read Dion Hinchcliffe’s (something?) and found that he used the term to describe all the stuff that gets me excited about the web these days and lists a bunch of sites that I’ve been quite impressed with. The trick with Web 2.0 is to get a critical mass of people excited and collaborating. It like building a mouse trap whose effectiveness depends on the number of people who show up to see it. Or something.

   Anyway, you can tell which side of the functionality vs. design thing I come down on, although by Eric’s definition, I think my latest effort probably qualifies as Web 2.0 influenced.

5. eric Says:
   

   April 27th, 2006 at 2:01 pm

   agreed on all points except gradients and rounded corners. i just wont do it, don’t buy it, and will avoid it until it goes away.

6. carl Says:
   

   April 27th, 2006 at 3:06 pm

   hey there Mennonot - welcome to MeyerBros. The LMC site looks like modified Kubrick. I like it, though I’m sure Eric disapproves of the rounded corners and gradients.
   Also, your link to Dion Hinchcliffe disappeared somehow. I inserted (something?) to mark where I presume a link should have been. Was it to The State of Web 2.0 ?

7. Goshen boy Says:
   

   April 27th, 2006 at 5:10 pm

   EffectWebMedia.com was designed to be highly ranked (it is), and generate leads (which it does plenty of). 20 validation errors really mean nothing.

   This very page has 9, a ton of wasted space, and has been designed for 600px res if you choose to pick at it.

   Trust me, great websites (that are effective) have much less to do with validation errors (or lack their of) than usability, color, style, feelings, and all that other good stuff.

   If you’ve got a web dev biz, I’d be happy to help you out in anyway that I can.

8. eric Says:
   

   April 28th, 2006 at 3:48 am

   Goshen Boy,

   Thanks for your comment on our new blog. Apologies for any offense. There was really no good reason to pick on your site in the first place, since, in the greater web, it’s really a fairly nice looking site - whatever aesthetic differences I have with the design trends behind it.

   I do think code validation is important for the web to be able to move forward and become more user friendly and accessible for all of us. Of course, with browser support and other issues in our way we certainly aren’t designing in a perfect web-world yet. The code for my site (XHTML and CSS) was all written today - and I haven’t had the chance to validate any of it yet (and thus I find only 9 errors fairly reassuring (though I only find six, and of those six only one is in our page proper, the rest are in people’s comments), but I guarantee I will do everything I can to have it as clean and accessible as possible as soon as I get the chance. While our clients may not know to care in the short term, long term web development depends on designers, programmers and browser developers working together towards a more friendly, open and usable web standard.

   All the posts on our site are also fairly new and benign attempts to put test content on the page. I would be glad to remove my references to your site as we continue to build ours - though I like the conversation about function, design and the variable merits of “web 2.0″ trends that it has sparked. I agree entirely with you that color choice and feeling are essential to a site, as much as any code validation issues. I agree with Carl that friendly fonts are a step towards usability. I do think sites should always have the user in mind. But I don’t think that necessarily means pandering to whatever web trends come along in order to please them. It may be the artist/idealist in me, but I’m much more interested in engaging an audience through flexible, open risk-taking (even if that means failing or offending at times) rather than simply by attempting to please everyones senses at once.

   You’ll find if you look into it more that this nearly colorless layout and style is an early attempt at a particular MSIE friendly, completely simple and completely w3c valid, extremely flexible concept (with even correct source-order, despite all MSIE attempts to make that impossible) that I’ve been working on. I also wanted to give the black and white color scheme a try since it is rarely (if ever) done. I hope, in the future, to develop multiple and varied designs for this site - some more immediately pleasing and others less - all based on the idea that, in the end, “user-friendly” is not a short-term goal but a long-term vision that involves both flexible design and flexible code.

   However, thank you for reminding me that the web is public, as it should be, despite my lazy assumptions that no one will look at a site I’m still working on. That is unprofessional and in poor taste on my part. I apologize for that and for attacking your site when I feel much more frustration towards some of the pundits on the other end (such as Nielson) who ignore design AND code (weather trendy or ideal) entirely in favor of user flexibility.

   The web is still a new technology and no one agrees completely on how it ought to work or where it ought to go. I only hope we can agree to go there together, and in that vein I apologize for inappropriate, backhanded comments about your site.

   I hope you have plenty of success in your business,
   Eric

9. Goshen boy Says:
   

   May 1st, 2006 at 8:34 am

   Eric,

   Thanks totally fine, it’s not a big deal. I did appreciate the praise an certain site attributes. Thanks for your thoughtful response.

   Steve

10. MeyerBros » When web design goes bad Says:
    

    March 6th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    […] Since Eric kicked things off here nearly a year ago by pointing out some creative differences with a web deign firm, I thought it might be time to point out another example of web designer’s web sites gone badly wrong: […]