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Design Considerations for the Web 2.0

For a long time, web design was handled by those with the necessary technical skills to build websites. It was often the same person doing both the front, and back end of a website. These are two very different skills and really, one should lead on to the other. The more you look at Web 2.0 services, it becomes obvious which ones have spent time, money and expertise on their interfaces, and those that have not. But of course the Web 2.0 isn’t all about the big sites, this applies as much to those going through Blog designs as anyone else. To emphasize the areas where you can succeed and fail in designing a Web 2.0 site, I’ve picked out a handfull of aspects that you need to consider, and what you should consider for each. So let’s get started.

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Standardising the unstanderdisable

As some of you may have read in a previous post, I’m a recent convert to Mac OSX.  One of the problems I’m having is that my tried and tested ways of working in Windows are now being challenged for the first time in ten plus years.  I had these pre-conceived notions of how an OS should work, and they just don’t hold true for OSX.  Take downloads for example, in windows I download a program, probably zipped.  I then unzip it and run the installation executable file, done and done.  Compare this to the OSX process.  Typically it will be a dmg file I download (sometimes compressed), I have to “mount” this file and then do whats required, which is usually just dropping the .app file into my applications folder.

Am I getting to the point yet?  Well, yes.  If you consider the fairly common process of downloading and installing a program in the two operating systems you get a feel for how differently they perform.  And bare in mind this is just one very small aspect of what they do, imagine how different things like system administration could be.  The other thing to bare in mind is the fact that these are both locally residing operating systems, imagine the extra confusion that could potentially be introduced when we consider remotely hosted operating systems and working environments (is that the point I see on the horizon?).

I may have picked operating systems, and I accept (and am gratefull of the fact) that we are a long way away from having stable, reliable, usable and standard hosted operating systems but the same principals apply to applications.  The point is we already have this added third dimension of confusion (trade mark pending) with the proliferation of web apps.  The one thing we don’t have currently is any consistency, and this causes huge usability headaches.  This is something I’ve harped on about before, within an OS you have accepted standards for interacting with you applications.  In OSX, hitting control and , brings up preferences, in Windows Alt and F4 closes the active Window etc.  This truly fundamental level of predictable design is sadly lacking in Web apps.  In fact, there only seems to be one standard.  If text is editible in line, then highlight it in Yellow when the user mouses over it, and that seems like a forced standard.

What I would like to see are some evolved standards for web applications, its not too much to ask.  My concern is that one of the big companies that offers web applications (Google, MS, Yahoo, I’m looking at you) will accidently create standards.  All it takes is a suite of applications to take off and the others will follow.

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Flash Vs AJAX

AJAX is very much the new kid on the block, he’s smart, he’s popular and damn, all the ladies love him.  A bit like the Fonz in some respects.  One flash of that jacket (read: no refresh forms with fancy effects) and everyone is swooning.  The problem with AJAX, much like the Fonz, is that its all too easy to overlook the flaws.

So what exactly are the problems with the Fonz?  Well for starters, he was awfully promiscuous, so inevitibly, for the time, was a carrier of multiple STDs, then theres the hair, surely a fire hazard if ever I saw one.  Wait, I’ve expanded on the wrong point there (eyyyyyy etc.).  So what are the problems with Ajax, and just whats going on in the world of Flash (would Flash be Tom Bosley possibly?).  Read on…

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Hiring a web developer? Equip yourself first and don’t lose out

Web developers are the mechanics of the 21st century. They perform some voodoo magic under the hood of your site and everything comes up rosy, right. Right? Well no, not always. There was this technique mechanics used to use to make an engine sound smoother than it really was, they used to put sawdust in the oil. Sure it used to run fine for a few miles but then BANG! It would lose most of its engine all over the side of the road. The entrepreneurs out there who are looking to hire a developer may end up with a bum deal. How can you prevent this? Read on…

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Why accessibility should be about stopping screenreaders

This is a bit of a rant about the current state of accessibility in the web.  I constantly hear people go on about accessibility and making sure that users who rely on screenreading software can access the information on the site.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they seem to be missing the middle bit, the reason why some users need screenreaders in the first place.  My argument would be that some of the users who currently rely on screenreaders, probably wouldn’t need it if sites were designed with true accessibility in mind.

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