Web 2.0 sucks at Web design. That’s what Jakob Nielsen recently said at a conference where he lambasted fancy, flashy Web 2.0 sites that sacrifice usability for pizzazz. (I hope CrunchGear isn’t considered flashy at usability’s expense.) Too many sites, often run and/or funded by people who know nothing of Web design, set aside “getting it right,” and this will turn around and, in so many words, bite them in the ass soon enough.
Essentially, Nielsen thinks that Web sites should get back to basics, and those Web sites that “get it” will be the ones to benefit. Another problem with Web 2.0: there’s too much reliance on user input. It’s already been shown that few people actually participate in Web fun, so sites just looking to get as many users as possible without giving them a real, useful-to-them reason to sign up could also be burned.
But no, Web 2.0 is where’s it’s at. One.
Web 2.0 ‘distracts good design’ [BBC News]
unsuable websites? Does this typo mean that you aren’t using Firefox 2?
Spelling aside, web 2.0 is a silly, silly moniker. It’s suggesting that what we are using is only the second incarnation of the internet. I mean, the internet has been around for decades. I think the internet probably hit 2.0 quite some time ago, and saying that what we are using is the second complete version is a joke. If this really was the second incarnation of the internet, there would be no banner ads, no flash games and no graphics. Also, very few people would be online, and they’d probably be using 2400 baud modems.
You know I’d be inclined to listen to this asshole if his website weren’t so ugly and unusable.
Jakob is all about measuring affordances that have become, but the web makes new affordances. Right now Web 2.0 companies are flailing around doing a lot of stupid things, but ever so often they do a smart thing and that’s why they end up with all the money and idiots keep paying Jakob to tell them that they’re wrong and they should go back to browsing the internet using smoke signals.
CrunchGear? Why aren’t your website links underlined and in blue? Didn’t you get the memo?
has Jakob updated his web standards since 1998?
the world has moved on
they were good ideas then, they are good principles now
As I say on my blog in response to the same article, Neilsen used to be the go-to guy on all things usability and web punditry. He’s still right on the fundamentals of usability, but the boat’s left without him on his assertions about the social, collaborative aspects of the web.
He seems to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the web as “third place”, where people deliberately go to be with and interact with others.