29 Jan, 2007
The Web 2.0 Design Checklist.
Posted by: admin In: Uncategorized
We’ve taken time to write up a short list of things to remember when designing a web 2.0 application or website.
Please note: Using these design principles doesn’t automatically make your website “web 2.0ey”. We are just noting down the popular web 2.0 design trends that have started popping up over the Internet the past few months.
Possibly the most obvious one. If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past 12 months then you will know this already. Big fonts are definitely a must for designing for web 2.0 applications. Big fonts can be worked into the UI all over the place, in the navigation, in headings, sometimes even the content itself.
This one is such an incredible clich?ɬ© I can’t believe i’m even using it. However, i think it needs to be said. Web 2.0 is all about the content. People don’t care about graphic heavy yaxay style designs anymore, they care about the content. The less design elements there are the better as it gives your website visitor a chance to do and see what they came to your website for; the content.
White space is making come back. Flickr is an example of a website that uses white space excellently. If there is a gap in your sites content, don’t worry about it! White space is cool in the web 2.0 design world.
This one isn’t so much a rule as a generalisation. The vast majority of web 2.0 sites and applications are centered in the browser window. You won’t find many websites that are left aligned of fluid*.
*Fluid refers to websites stretching to the full width of the browser window.
Keep navigation simple. A great way of doing this is by adding tag clouds. They have became so popular in web 2.0 applications that they have almost become a design element in themselves.
A tag cloud can be used as a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag. - Source.
If you’re a designer just add one to your web 2.0 design and let your programmer worry about having to code it.
It has become common practice to include some kind of bold, striking introduction to your website on the homepage. We’re even doing it here at tutorialvine. 
That concludes our brief checklist of things to remember when designing for web 2.0. Feel free to stray away from the “rules” as much as you like and try and come up with something truly unique.
Here are a few more links that you may find useful.
Web 2.0 digg stories.
Wikipedia
The web 2.0 bullshit generator
TechCrunch
Thanks for reading.
Discuss the tutorial in the forum.
