Web 2.0 Usability

Posted on | July 5, 2007 | No Comments

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I noticed that an old post became relatively popular, the one called “The Web – past, present and future“, looking mostly at different solutions for the future web, and touching lightly on what others have said. Today I instead describe some of my own thoughts about the future of the web – with 3D applications such as Google Earth and Second Life, vertical search engines such as momondo, Ziggs and SimplyHired, and online applications like for example BudgetPulse and LabPixies helping you replace old offline applications with online equivalents.

Some keywords for the future as I see it are Usability, Attitude, Flexibility and Creativity. What is missing most now is the Usability, and looking at the average web 2.0 application you can easily see many flaws – some of which I’ll consider here later. For some testing, I joined a few of the new networks and similar ‘Web 2.0′ sites, such as yumondo, tried some online tools like udutu, while wondering how those names suddenly became so popular – but at the same time positive about the globalised feeling and relaxed attitude it shows for names.

I’ll write more about my findings here later – for now I can say that many of the sites have slow loading, that it’s often difficult or impossible to bookmark search results and similar, and that many of the designers have tried being too cool and forgot that someone should be able to use the site as well…