The term “Web 2.0” has been around for quite some time, in terms of visual design for the web. While there are some significant and appropriate design themes we can associate with “Web2.0”, these are not the surface styles and effects that might first come to the mind. The elements of real Web2.0 design are not solely graphical.

One aspect of “Web2.0″ is the recent in the web economy. You feel this in the number of new companies competing in new niches, the amount of venture capital investment available and aggressive acquisitions and consolidations by bigger players. A lot of us observe Web2.0 as fundamentally a technological phenomenon, where data and functionality are free to move between applications more easily, thanks to new data transfer formats and techniques like RSS, web services, microformats and AJAX. The consequence of this is that information entered on one site may wind up being repurposed somewhere else, even in a different medium. The mobility of content requires a fundamental separation of data from display style. Information is more often stored in databases or as XML and transmitted to a wider variety of devices in a wider range of formats then ever before.

Another significant point of view on Web 2.0 is the democratization of information. Regular ordinary web users are more often the creators and editors of content. Anyone can be a journalist through their blog and RSS feed and everyone has a voice about what counts as news through social bookmarking sites like Digg and del.icio.us. It may be a coincidence that culture is much more media-savvy and conscious of commercial relationships than at the end of the 20th Century. The traditional top-down media channels and to some extent, business models have been turned upside down in the 21st Century. You don’t have to have heaps of contacts or money to do business or to persuade thousands of people through blogging.

It is definitely possible for corporates to make use of effective Web2.0 design trends. In Web2.0, the whole site has to feel transparent, open, and trustworthy. Every element of every page has to be front-facing and single-minded in its focus on a simple proposition. In the cut-throat Web2.0 marketplace, you don’t have time to sweet-talk and woo visitors. They know their power, they are knowledgeable post-consumers, and there is a lot of choice out there. In fact, this has always been the case, but the difference with this Web is that your competitors are clever to it, which is why you have to be.

Almost everything should be simpler in Web2.0 design and any complication has to be justified. Any pixels should support the simple focus of the page. Pixels might add color, contrast or visual busyness that can draw the attention. They can also create strong shapes or lines. The thing you notice about good graphic design in the Web2.0 world is that pixels are used very watchfully, to manage the visitor’s attention carefully. Any element on any page must justify its existence or it should be simply removed. So the simple focus, less design and pixel-saving layouts are surly the hallmarks of Web 2.0.

Tags: Hallmark of Web 2.0 Design