Web 2.0 pushes web designers to make websites even more intuitive for users
Vancouver, BC - April 13, 2010 - Coined by Tim O'Rielly and MediaLive International in 2005, the term Web 2.0 has become synonymous with everything from the evolution of internet technologies to dynamic web applications. It has many connotations but it's quite often used to describe the design conventions related to the recent advancements in scripting and markup, document types and CSS layouts.
More than just rounded corners and modal pop-ups, this new school of minimalist, content driven web design emphasizes accessibility, readability and end-user interactivity. Design is now driven by what the user is looking for, as opposed to what you wish to present. Tag clouds are a great example of this visual accessibility as a means of intuitive navigation.
Many of the original web design technologies have been extended or otherwise improved with a new generation of libraries and tools. Aside from changing the underlying methodology of design, this has made it even simpler to offer a consistent user experience across a broad range of platforms and devices. The extension of the HTML into the XHTML document type provides a future framework based in XML and, together with simplified Javascript libraries such as jQuery and the Yahoo! UI Library, designers can include a high level of functionality and style which degrades gracefully when viewed with unsupported devices. Released in 2005, AJAX (short for asynchronous javascript and XML) combines these two web technologies in a suite of tools which creates the potential for true client-side interactivity.
With the rapid expansion of the web as a participant platform, it has never before been so important for web designers to remain on top of design trends, but also to stay fluent in the technologies which drive those trends.
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