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Updating web design to WEB 2.0

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Luke Farley is a director and co-founder of online strategies and tools consultancy Lcubed.

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Web 2.0 is changing the face of web design. Luke Farley explores the features of the new look and how you can incorporate them into your site.

The latest and greatest online marketing ideas are often adopted by savvy businesses from the creative breeding ground of the consumer web. Web 2.0 is no exception, but there remains a point at which organisation conservatism pulls rank over the Web 2.0 philosophy of liberal grassroot contribution. So what organisations would benefit from a Web 2.0 makeover and just how do you get the ‘Web 2.0 look’?

Web 2.0 consists of a number of interrelated parts, from audience-driven content, to new technology approaches. These have combined to shift the way we perceive and utilise the web. Until Web 2.0 emerged, for most of us the web was a cool, and largely free, information source, as well as a very convenient way to exchange information peer to peer. Search engines, blogs and social media moved the web up another gear, making it a more democratic, human and arguably more engaging place.

Many aspects of Web 2.0 have already been adopted enthusiastically by the business world, some are yet to catch on, and yet others are best left for the entertainment of the Internet Generation. Business blogs are de rigeur for companies wishing to release information via less formal channels. Wikis are finding their way into the mainstream as fluid repositories for an organisation’s tacit knowledge. As the Web 2.0 bandwagon moves on, it is bringing with it a fresh new look, a look that is distinct enough to be defined and ‘replicated’. It is also a look that is being adopted by organisations who are not strictly Web 2.0.

The Web 2.0 look has a number of attributes which are less formal and tend to simplify web pages for quicker consumption. Web 2.0 design is elegant, fresh and bold. But how is this implemented at the detail level?

  • distinct page layouts, specifically meaning that pages are divided into sections containing bold banners and elegant design features
  • simplified design with reduced levels of busy (often textual) content, and simple menus and navigation
  • bold and fresh colour schemes
  • incorporation of embellishments and design features (not just in logos), which has heralded a revival of the icon, and
  • over-sized text both in headers and body copy.

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