The fundamental nature of Web 2.0 is the web’s makeover from a company-centric, information channel to an interactive, online community. Information and tasks that were previously limited to select groups are accessible to everyone. You can now do whole lot of things by yourself. For example, you can book your own travel with tools comparable to those used by professional travel agents or analyze financial markets via systems that were previously only available to traders.

The challenge companies face is that they have traditionally controlled the way their products, services and brands were portrayed online through the design and content of their websites. With greater user engagement, today’s inward- and public-facing websites require us to revisit established best practices and look at the implications of designing and evaluating social-based, collaborative interfaces.

The success of a website used to depend largely upon the relevance, usefulness and freshness of its content. Actually, creating and updating of content is a cumbersome process of maintaining a website. But this situation has changed. Now-a-days, more and more users have started contributing contents that are full of reactions to ideas of others and creation of their own experiences. So the balance of power has shifted to users. People are now more involved posing a challenge to website owners whether to moderate user-generated content. They are also more aware about various Web technologies and tools. They can subscribe to content via RSS and even embed pieces of content directly into other web pages. The portal like YouTube enables people worldwide to share their videos with like-minded people through its video embedding capabilities.

Users also have their role to play in web design. They can customize their own page payout and design. Site like MySpace offers this benefit to its users, though some other portals like Facebook have limited user involvement in design. Navigation, as usual, is an important aspect of web design. Information must be organized and labeled by using information architecture, so that it is easy to find. Users, though, are increasingly relying on more socially-derived cues such as recommendations.

Collaborative capabilities are also affecting search, which has traditionally depended on complex algorithms based on raw data to optimize content for search engines. Now users are tagging, i.e. assigning key words or category labels to content and telling others what content is famous, related or important.

The web is now far more than just a set of technologies and websites. It is a social medium where people expect and demand positive, emotional, online experiences that meet their needs and expectations. This requires a new take on usability to understand the psychology behind decision making and measure users’ emotional responses to a site. An e-commerce site, for example, has to induce customers to buy from it, rather than from some other sites, so we have to look at what motivates customers.

By understanding what encourages users to keep clicking through a transaction and which graphics, buttons, colors and text echo with them, you can improve their online experience and measure the value delivered to them.

Evaluating how well a site matches users’ underlying needs may be a new viewpoint but the usability tools for this analysis are familiar. It is just the perspective of their application that is novel. We are familiar with the basic usability test where a single user carries out tasks for a moderator over the course of an hour or so. Laboratory testing in this way, though, does not accurately reflect people’s social environments. With the new models of interaction, we also need to consider multiple tasks performed by interrelated groups of personae and how they affect each other.

Instead of the traditional interview method where users are asked to think carefully about their set tasks, data is collected using storytelling techniques to persuade discussion amongst users. In conjunction with eye tracking technology and heat mapping to measure where people’s attention is drawn on the screen, body language, facial expressions and other slight emotional responses are monitored to assess the triggers and blocks to conversion.

Usability testing, moreover, should be part of a continuing programme to measure, improve and refine user experiences and increase online conversion, uptake and usage.

Tags: Social Capabilities and Dynamics of Web 2.0