[Sigia-l] Web 2.0 99% bad

[Stew Dean]

On 17/05/07, Andrew Boyd <facibus at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > That they do. But whether it was crazy table-based extravaganzas in Web 1.0
> > days (the example I gave) or 'cramming in as many social features as they
> > can' nowadays (as you say), the problem is NOT Web 2.0 per se. It's just bad
> > design. There's nothing wrong with social features, it's the 'cramming'
> > that's a symptom of bad design. Complaining of the latter is an invitation
> > to the Hall of the Obvious or, I suppose, an Alertbox. I guarantee there'll
> > be obvious examples of bad design during Web 3.0 and 4.0. :-)
>
> Anyone notice the circular argument here? Ziya, myself, and others on
> one side saying "Jakob got it a bit wrong, Web 2.0 is not about bad
> design, bad designers are about bad design" and some other people
> saying "Web 2.0 is bad because there are bad designs"? :)

I don't think Jakob is saying Web 2.0 is about bad "design" - but that
it has been the excuse for bad "design".  The word design in your use
is to vague as it doesnt include what the priority of the design is.
Most Web 2.0 sites have a lot of nice looking visual design and have a
lot of functionality that on the UI level is very well put togehter
(excluding MySpace which is sub amazon in it's interface style).
Behind the scenes the coding is modern and up to date (excluding
MySpace which is a mush of cold fusion).

> I think that the Top 40 metaphor applies - if you listen to a Top 40
> radio station, you may not like too many of the songs, especially if
> you are older than the target demographic. When you listen to a
> middle-of-the-road station you will hear a mixture of Top 40 and older
> hits that have survived the quantity-over-quality stage, and probably
> find the offering more palatable. (In reality, of course, YMMV, I know
> for myself I would generally rather enjoy the silence than listen to
> commercial radio of any sort). "Web 2.0" is throwing more bad sites at
> the moment because that is what is hip - and like my learned
> colleague, I'd like to guarantee that if there is a Web 3.0, 4.0. or
> 27,000.0, there will be some woeful design.

Yes there are many bad Web 2.0 sites but we, as user experience
professionals, need to be aware of why these sites are bad.

To me it's obvious, the core focus of these sites is often deeply
obscure and in many cases the central idea is not strong enough to
support what ever the site is supposed to do. Also if there is a
strong central idea it is often obscured by overly generic  and
context free experience design.  If I was doing a .com venture I would
not use a 5-6 letter name ending in a vowel and would avoid lime green
and aqua affect buttons.

The whole point here is that Web 2.0 is NOT Web 2.0!  It's getting
closer to Web 1.0 and what the original concept behind the web AND
internet was about. That is everyone contributing to a global
collection of information (whilst doing a bit of shopping, gameing and
looking at porn as it turns out).

To get techie style sheets where specked out in about 1996 if I
remember rightly - it's just take 10 years before the browsers have
caught up.

So how do we fix the problems with Web 2.0?  Well the big thing is
context, context, context. The names need to be clearer, the visuals
less generic and the site needs to say what it does in ways that are
not hand waving. If we are going to use Jargon (blog is still Jargon
to many) then there needs to be a way to allow people to decoded that
Jargon - assumed knowledge often destroys a user experience.  Above
all we need to not loose the plot because we have some shiny new toys
and terms to play with.

To quote the best thing my design lecturer at uni said 'Avoid the
arbitrary'. Took me a while to get what he meant but Web 2.0 is an
example where the arbitrary  has swamped that which has cohesive
purpose.

Stew Dean