eBusiness Association: Designing for Web 2.0

by December 9, 2007

Last Friday I spoke at an eBusiness Association event in Rochester, NY on the topic of Designing for Web 2.0. In addition to an overview session for CIOs and CMOs, I also facilitated a day-long workshop that outlined examples and design considerations for several prominent trends on the Web today. Addressing these trends is at the core of designing for “web 2.0”.

Download Slides

Designing for Web 2.0 (1.7 MB PDF)

Audio Interview

RAMA and eBusiness Association Present: an interview with Luke Wroblewski (12 min audio interview) "Yvonne DiVita and Luke talk visual vocabulary and Web 2.0 Design"

Interview with LukeW on Designing for Web 2.0:

Web design specialist puts his 2.0 sense in (Democrat and Chronicle, Dec 6, 2007) "The whole 2.0 thing has this marketing buzzword context with it. But there are fundamental transitions in the technology that influence how you do design..."

The specific trends I addressed:

  • The trend from locomotion to manipulation and conversation: how do we deal with crowded shelf space and purely digital services?
  • The trend from sites to content experiences: how do we design when search, content aggregators, and display surfaces rule the Web?
  • The trend from page-level interactions to rich-interactions: how can we explain available actions and their states?
  • The move from webmasters making content to everyone making content: what does this do to creative control and what’s the impact (both positive and negative) of community?

Official Description:

As a predominately visual medium, the web has always benefited from the appropriate use of Visual Communication principles, balance, proportion, contrast, color and typography. But the web has also had its own set of unique considerations; screen resolution, browsers, platforms and multiple devices. With Web 2.0, these considerations have expanded to include a new array of service to remix and distribute micro-content (APIs, RSS), as well as participatory content created by communities.

  • How can visual design enhance user experience when your audience might be coming from a browser, an RSS feed, or a widget?
  • How does visual design communicate your brand when your brand is created daily by your community?

This presentation will address these questions and more with an overview of key Visual Communication principles, and before and after examples that illustrate how to optimize your visual vocabulary for Web 2.0 and beyond.

Much thanks to Ralph, Tom, and the entire eBusiness Association team.