What is Web 2.0 Design?

[Scott.Botkins]

Yeah, I think that as long as you manage to stay up to date on the trends within web development, which just hanging around SitePoint should help us all with, there will be plenty of work for us, in the future as well. The fact that it's getting easier to participate online without skills, might even make the demand for those who posses web dev skills even higher. Or so one can hope at least

You pointed out some great things, but I believe we may be digging our own graves as we over do things. Some of us are creating techniques that make the job easier on us and our clients but when we're doing this we're making it easier for a no-skilled web designer to make a webpage which will eventually cause a low demand in sales for websites.

Hopefully you guys see what I'm saying, we're creating ways for a 15 year old kid to come online and overflow the market simply because he can open up frontpage or install a portal that has everything you possibly need for a website to generate money.

I hope I'm wrong and it's just me learning too much too easy, but we need to keep the buyer coming back for more.

[J Windebank]

Scott, you have a point, but that has always been the case, and the reason we have such a mess on the web as it is. There will always be cheap hacks out there overcharging for horrible work, and they will continue to give us a bad name. What we need to do is reestablish ourselves, not as "web designers" but as "online solutions providers".

Creating a webpage has always been relatively easy, but this job requires so much more than that. Creating a site that accurately represents what the client wants and needs, being able to convert visitors in to customers, and having search engines rank the site well are always going to be advantages that we can offer over the "spare-bedroom designers".

The internet is a tool for marketing and promoting a business, and for generating sales. The developers that can see this and utilise that knowledge are the ones who will continue to be hired by those firms who originally gave their project to the "designers" of yesteryear who threw together a FrontPage mess.

I think most web development firms need to reassess their market at the moment, and look to "recreations" rather than "creations" if they want to stay on top of the game.

Regards,
Jordan

[Lars-Christian]

Jordan, you have some excellent points there, and your last I couldn't agree more about. I was actually just now after reading through this thread, thinking about a website I did for a client about half a year ago, and how much better I could actually do it, in terms of not only design, but also setup and accessibility for the potential client. I'm actually thinking of proposing the client that I redo the site for pennies, just for the sake of avoiding that feeling that I've given him too little value for his money.

[Sojan80]

I like the style, too. But, let's get serious - the whole 'Web 2.0' thing is some invented catch-phrase that doesnt mean much.

I couldnt agree more..

Coudnt we just say 'modern web style' or 'well-built websites', etc. All it really means is that you apply good standards and employ best practices.

Yes, we could, but unfortunately, getting everyone to agree to what these best practices are so we can write them down and set them up as guidelines can be a bit maddening.

After all, Are we talking about best practices for the Microsoft/IE web, or are we talking about best practices for the standards-based web? They are two entirely different animals after all.

[flash6designer]

Hi All,

To know the details about WEB 2.0 , Please check the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Please let me know, if you need any further clarification on it.

Thank you.

Flash

[mPeror]

I don't agree entirely. I could be wrong, but I thought HTML 4.1 Strict does not require closing tags correctly and allows some deprecated tags and elements? If so, then to me, it makes more sense to stick with XHTML 1.0 Strict.

Regards,
Jordan

HTML 4.1 Strict requires nesting tags correctly, but there are tags (like <p> and <li>) that can be optionally closed. Try validating the following code and the validator will throw errors :

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
  <title>Sample</title>
  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1250">
  </head>
  <body>
  <div><span></div></span>
  </body>
</html>

You can always add closing tags, when they're optional, for the sake of readability though (like many designers who use HTML4.1 strict do).

Also, HTML4.1 does not allow deprecated elements. w3.org says :

The HTML 4.01 Strict DTD includes all elements and attributes that have not been deprecated or do not appear in frameset documents.

Sitepoint's DHTML utopia uses HTML 4.1 Strict for it's scripts, even though Javascript\DOM requires a document with perfectly nested tags in order to work properly.

You can still stick to xHTML strict, but it's always going to be HTML 4.1 strict with some extra slashes as long as you serve it as an HTML document, not an XML application.

[argonauta]

I find it ironic that web2.0 isn't in beta, it's a final release

I'd only take it seriously if it were web 2.0 beta, in invite only mode.

[kohoutek]

To me everything that has the label web 2.0 is a good indicator and reminder that I should be very cautious in applying "trendy and hip" applications with no purpose. Of course, not all new inventions and applications are bad (Ruby on Rails is a good example), but too many so called "new" development trends (excessive use of JavaScript or Ajax and the like where it's not needed) do not really "do" anything that is of good use. The mix of presentation, markup and behaviour is beginning to become more and more clouded once again. And here I thought we'd been past that level.

[neodur]

The Web 2.0 validator cannot be more wrong, it gives flickr 3 out of 45!

[hpal]

tagworld is like a new myspace, it was done inweb 2.0
interesting concept to give each member total control in creating whole page + easy of drag and drop

[Buddy Bradley]

Although personally I think that "Web 2.0" has nothing to do with design per se, there's a good round-up of Web 2.0 design styles here.

[Tijmen]

Here's a long list of web 2.0 sites http://www.listible.com/list/complet...s-and-services And yes the sites itself is in Beta

[Troutnut]

I would say being Web 2.0 means that a site's content comes mostly from its users. Forums don't count.

[Beansprout]

A great deal of 'web 2.0' is self-absorbed bloggers, playground fonts, buzzwords and colourful graphics.

I'm all for new tech (duh ), but I absolutely hate hype. I don't want to remember 2000

My opinion of "Web 2.0" is that it's a semantic, accessible, useful web funded by Adsense and YPN, not popups and Doubleclick. It makes it easy for the users to navigate and is hosted by people who care for their site.

Web 2.0 is not AJAX! Putting AJAX on a site will not get the VCs knocking at your door! We've been there and done that in 2000 and the world will not fall for it again.

I think a great deal of the excitement at the moment is that the web really is evolving now. Back in 2000 it was "wow, we have the internet - broadband, yeah, 3% of people have it, just out the labs - throw money! party!" until everyone realised that it wasn't that mature. At all.

But now - the web is cleaner, more pleasant, and a lot lot quicker to use. Average Joe can create his own blog and share his own life with others, keep his family uptodate while he travels, check his e-mail from his mobile.

That, to me, is Web 2.0. Or maybe Tech 2.0. Everything is growing up, and it's really exciting to be a part of.

I got a new phone the other day and for crying out loud it can shut my computer down when I walk away from it. Madness, but fantastic madness for a technogeek like me

[Frenchiexno1]

Its China setting up their own internet in competition with the rest of the world!
Frenchie http://www.buythemap.com

[mcsolas]

The 37signals site is coming up with some really cool apps. The backpackit site is one that I really like as a good example.

To me web 2.0 is all about avoiding needless page refreshes. When properly implemented, it can conserve (potentially costly) server resources.

Zeldman says lets just skip right to web 3.0

[lo0ol]

I'm still struggling to get to Web .78.

[DaveRH]

I read in a magazine that Web 2.0 was in part referring to the fact that in web 1.0 it took millions of dollars for a star-up, while these days you can probably get everything for a new complex dynamic site done (advertising included for like 10 - 20 grand)

[Hero Doug]

Can someone explain to me what web 2.0 is?

I couldn't read the whole article because it just seems too much like a what's cool and what's not cool list to get themselves publicity.

This is the last I'll ever read of it,

[peach]

That's entirely my point.

well, but unlike jpegs, some so-called Web 2.0 apps like the google suggest tool are completely inaccessible to screenreaders and this gui doesn't cater visually impaired users at all.
This app could function much better without the fancy web2.0 AJAX dropdown box.

[mcsolas]

This app could function much better without the fancy web2.0 AJAX dropdown box.

How would you make it function better?

I had heard about google suggest, but never checked it out until now. Looks pretty nice to me. Im not sure how you would make something like that accessible to screen readers ..

[pixelsoul]

An awesome example of a web 2.0 site:
http://www.live.com/

Usually not a big fan of ms but i think this new site is really clever in some parts

[AffiliateClassro]

It's my understanding that web 2.0 is all about building sites that have lots of "user generated content" - so they build themselves...

Anik

[sitedesigner]

From reading this thread, I get the impression that they are asthetically pleasing, validated, and quickly loading sites with large fonts that get a good portion of information across to the user.... Not really sure why there's a "term" for this style of web design. I think it might fade though.

[mp.Designs]

yea, basically... CSS + whitespace + big system fonts + nice little graphic elements = web 2.0 design