www.2wopoint.com

Cool new visualization tool. Article is at the new blog: 2wopoint.com.

 Chris

A new article has been posted at this blog's new home: 2wo.point.com. 

Chris 

I've moved this blog over to 2wopoint.com.

I wanted to host it myself in order to be able to add more interesting features and cool stuff. Please head on over and take a look!

Thanks!

Chris

It's been a busy week!

I decided to upload a screenshot of my two.point project. The screenshot below is the start page. The idea behind the site is to allow users to post, review, tag, and rate web applications and services. It's something that's been on my mind for awhile, a central site that I could use to see how other people rate these things.

The interface is still a bit rough, but all the elements I wanted to add are there, even if they might move around a bit (the search box is just a placeholder image and the positioning is awkward). So far, I've written the markup and the site functions purely on a navigational level-there's no back-end implemented yet. As I've mentioned in previous posts, progress is slow, as this is only one of several school projects I have right now. But this one's the most fun!

Okay, now I have to go back to trying to make the darn thing work.

Also, I've redesigned the look and feel of my personal portfolio site. The site is primarily around to showcase some of my design work from the past few years. Check it out.

(There's a larger image here if you're interested!)

In my last post, I wrote a bit about early adopters of new web technologies and the fact that a lot of these services tend to appeal to the "web geeks". Ellyssa Kroski at Infotangle has written a nice article about the concept of "technology cheerleader", and how difficult it is to show the average user just how much there is to gain by embracing the "new web".

I got my dad to use Firefox, and he likes it a lot better than Internet Explorer. He's expressed interest in starting a blog, to keep friends and family updated on events in his life. But I doubt he'd be interested in RSS feeds, OPML files, or "social bookmarking". I know people who are online a lot, but they spend most of their time playing MMO's. Everyone's expectations are different.

Probably the main reason I started this blog was because I couldn't find anyone else around me who cared about this stuff. What makes the idea of community on the web so appealing is there are lots of other people out there just like me. However, just being a part of a community doesn't make you eloquent. As mentioned last time, I had a hard time explaining "Web 2.0" to my peers at school. It wasn't the technological but the conceptual that defied easy explanation. Knowledge is pretty meaningless if you can't communicate it to others. And all I wanted to do is convey how cool and exciting all this new technology was.

Communities are safe. Communities are insulated. Communities bring people together, and break them apart. I've seen people refer to being "in the space" when talking about the "new web". There's something about this term that bothers me, though I haven't exactly figured out why. I understand the rationalization but it seems somewhat elitist to me, like a special place only smart kids can understand. What can we do to break out of this? Which tools will move from "cool" to "useful"? Will the innovations we are seeing fundamentally change the way the average person uses the web or will they just be interpolated transparently into the same old shells? And will these changes come from love of technology and community or a startup's exit strategy? I think the concepts will far outlive the moniker-especially one with so many interpretations.

Thoughts?

There's been a lot of discussion online lately about early adopters of new web start-ups and the audience for these new services. It recalls something that happened in a class of mine a couple of weeks ago, when we first started critiques of our projects.

A discussion emerged while I was presenting the concepts for my web application resource site. No one in the class understood the concept because no one had heard the term "web application" before. They thought I was talking about shareware. My initial interface was unclear because the visual language I used was foreign to the people I was addressing. I tried to explain concepts like folksonomies, using del.icio.us as an example, only to be met with blank stares.

I was initially taken aback, for I figured that since these were all web design students, surely they knew about all the buzz surrounding web 2.0. Even if they believed it was all hype. And by trying to explain these concepts, I ended up sounding like an arrogant know-it-all. A stuttering geek spouting techno-babble and feeling superior about it. I was writing a site that catered to others like me. This is when I started to realize that not everyone in the world was excited about these things, not even future web professionals. How many outside the "geekosphere" are bothering with social bookmarking? Should a struggling new designer even bother with this stuff, or just learn Flash instead?

The ways in which we use the web are very personal. A lot of us are online for several hours every day or more. We check our e-mail, get directions, play games, tell our stories. As a web geek, I get worked up about the latest cool service or application. I sign up for the beta, play around for awhile, and often move on to the next new thing. The really useful ones I continue to use, but the number of new services is hard to keep up with. How much time and energy should we invest in new services? How do we know they'll still be around in six months? Do too many of us get caught up in the technology, the "wow" factor?

How do designers and programmers break past the early-adopters and into the mainstream? From a business perspective the best way to market a product is to convince potential users how much it can improve or simplify their lives. Is there big money in the "geek audience" in the long run? A lot of people are betting that there is. To many, "web 2.0" is a marketing term anyway. Time will show if the innovations we are seeing now are sustainable. Some will prevail, while others will be forgotten.

I receive a lot of good feedback regarding my project from my peers. My initial design did not include much in the way of instruction, for example. It relied too heavily on assumptions-that the potential new user was familiar and comfortable with an interface like del.icio.us. Much re-tooling was done to come up with a more open, clear design. There's still a long way to go, and the critique process has been extremely helpful. These are people who have chosen the web as a career path. They are a diverse group, with different goals and ambitions. Just like the rest of the web.

When designing a web interface, there are a lot of considerations-audience, navigability, etc…How should a "Web 2.0" app look? The current design trends include things like rounded corners and large fonts. These elements have become ubiquitous primarily because the most popular sites, the original innovators, used them.

So, to be truly 2.0 Compliant you need witty, one word titles and rounded corners, right? Maybe I should rename my project "Twopoopoo! (Beta)". This is obviously a vast oversimplification. One thought is that the average user expects these new sites to act and look a certain way. Designers have taken one of the tenets of Web 2.0-to be simple and useful-and incorporated this methodology into their designs. The specific elements I listed above are merely a trend-and we know what happens to trends over time-but the approach makes sense. The long practiced "30-second rule" of web design has more significance in today's Web simply because the number of new social apps is increasing daily. Which social bookmarking app we choose has a lot to do with the first impression we perceive when visiting. Since so many new sites rely on registration to survive, the interface is the first chance to show a potential new user why this particular service is compelling. Don't we all love a little eye-candy?

However, it could also be argued that the if the service is strong or unique enough, people will use it in spite of a clunky interface or an unappealing design. After all, taste is subjective, isn't it? Isn't the service itself the most important part?

There's a great article by Ryan Freitas from Adaptive Path about the design of Sphere, the new blog search tool that officially launched last Monday. It covers some of the design and interface challenges that presented themselves, and is an excellent read by anyone interested in web design or information architecture. Having read the article and checked out Sphere, I have to agree that they really nailed it. Yes, it has many of the elements I discussed earlier (although it only scored 7 out of 50 on the Web 2.0 validator!), and the design is elegant, deceptively simple and yet very powerful. It is a perfect example of balancing design trends with functionality.

Just a quick post to show the new logo design for my two.point project. I opted for something simple and easily recognizable:

-jachbla

I've been thinking a lot about information architecture and user experience design lately. Both (somewhat interchangeable) fields intrigue me on many levels. I've always been the type to somewhat obsessively organize things. Well, certain things anyway. Structuring and organizing data is becoming increasingly complex each day, and I think there's a real need out there for someone to attempt to make sense of it all.

As part of my two.point web project (see inaugural post), we are required to write a creative brief outlining things like: intended concept, target audience, project goals, user experience considerations, technical issues/concerns, and a site-map. There were some grumblings in the class about this part of the projects, but I was elated. As someone who finds himself leaning towards the IA concepts, it seemed a great opportunity to develop strategies and documentation for my site proposal.

What was particularly interesting was that the comps for the site (Photoshop or fireworks mock-ups that show general interface layout) were due for class critique two weeks before the creative brief. I think most of us in the class are used to working this way-drawing up an interface first and only doing wire-frame/creative brief/site-maps when required to do so. And this way of working in some way mirrors the design strategies advocated by many of the new Web 2.0 start-ups, particularly the folks at 37 Signals.

In their book/manifesto Getting Real, one of the concepts they advocate is designing the interface first. Since the product is the interface, insofar as the end-user is concerned, it allows more time to tweak it until it's just right. The book outlines their business and design philosophies in a breezy, conversational style. Their approach emphasizes simplicity in both design and the underlying functionality of the applications they develop. And they have proven themselves spectacularly. I use Backpack all the time, and our class utilizes Basecamp to keep each other up to date on our projects and ask each other for help with problems that arise (usually involving CSS issues! ). These are truly elegant applications.

Many of the new web applications and services are being designed and implemented by small teams, or sometimes by just one person. Increasingly, a lot of them are developing these apps from the interface-down; they are not using creative briefs, wire-frames, free-listing, or card sorting-all methods used by information architects. They operate lean, and their products do a few things really well. And it works, mostly.

But how do these ideas translate in the large corporate sites, for example, some of which span hundreds of pages?. The simplicity espoused by so many Web 2.0 start-ups doesn't always mesh with corporate vision or particularly heavy e-commerce sites. Navigation issues for these large sites is a real problem, requiring thoughtfulness and understanding to implement coherently. There's a real need for taxonomies and clear hierarchical structure. And unfortunately, not enough developers realize these issues. The simplest of the Web 2.0 sites utilize these same methods: the navigation is usually straight-forward and logical, and follows a flow that makes sense. And these interface guidelines are based upon years of work in the information architecture and user experience fields.

There is plenty of room on the Web for both the simple and the complex, and knowing the best way to structure a site is essential. It's obvious to me that proponents of each of these methodologies can benefit greatly from the other.