Filtering through the webisphere are various articles, blog entries, comments, etc., about the new look of Web 2.0 sites. Frequently cited are their clean design, strong use of color, utilization of font size to emphasize hierarchy, and so on. All true. These sites are great to look at and to use — they’re clean, easy to grasp and move the eye to specific points. But are the site designers doing anything new?
As the concept of the web has grown from a bunch of clickable links into a more sophisticated medium, standards from other professions have filtered into our world. The most obvious example is the integration of software practices such as mapping out site flows and writing well-formed code, which are (hopefully) practiced on even the most basic sites.
On the design side, after some trial and error, certain knowledge and practices from the physical world have successfully migrated into the digital world. Some have fallen aside (the brochureware sites of the early days come to mind). The 2.0 web sites receiving these plaudits are the result of the site designer’s understanding of the elements and principles of design along with a good dose of typography and page layout.
Is this new? Not at all. However, what is new (or perhaps I should say more prevalent) is the application of the underlying principles of good design while exploring the creativity allowed by Web 2.0 technology. And when done well, it truly is a wonderful site to behold.
