Ignoring The Basics In The Rush To Embrace Web 2.0

June 24th, 2008

With the immense hype surrounding web 2.0 are many companies ignoring the basic principles of creating websites?

More often than not, the web agency or web designer is at fault by trying to create something which is impressive to look at and, in an effort to embrace the web 2.0 ethos, has features that probably only 1% of site visitors will use. This can often result in having a badly designed website that is difficult to navigate and probably results in your customers moving on to the next website.

Lots of websites which use customisable features fall into this category where over 90% of the users will never use these ‘great’ features available to them. The development time for the extra features are often relected in higher costs for the client - resulting in very little ROI, if any. 

Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen held a presentation on this, highlighting some of the facts about our headlong rush towards Web 2.0. He warned that the desire to make webpages more dynamic often meant users were badly served.

E-Gain like many other web agencies use good practices include making a site easy to use, integrate good search tools where necessary, use jargon free text, usability testing and consideration to the design even before the first line of code is written.

Always ask yourself if you really need those extra features built into your website, and will the majority of your website visitors use or benefit from it?

Entry Filed under: News and Views, Website Design