The Web 2.0 Style

As anything, once something blows up, there’s going to be the backlash, right? Well, Web 2.0 is everywhere. Everyone it seems has adopted the “no e before r” rule, everyone’s got their beta stickers, they’ve got the shiny reflective logos, and even web 1.0 sites are starting to use Ajax. Now that can become disillusioning after a while, so of course there’s going to be the backlash, but the point I’d like to make is that the 37signals idea of “simple is better” is the best thing to come out of this web 2.0 style.
Remember the days of Times New Roman black on white, with those scattered clip art images and animated GIFs? How about the last time you went to your friend’s Myspace page. Wasn’t it a little hard to the read the text on top of that giant repeating N’Sync background?
My point is that, everyone has access to the internet, and nothing is stopping anyone from designing their own page. It’s pretty obvious that not everyone is a designer. So what’s the solution? Maybe a simple style that wouldn’t be that hard to put in place, and beats the pants off a sprawling array of clip art?
Let’s take Facebook for example. Unlike Myspace, they offer the users a simple usable layout that anyone can handle. How many times have you been to a friend’s facebook profile and waited an hour for unnecessary javascript, music, and giant images to load? That’s right, never. Leaving people with that simplicity seems to be one of the sites greatest advantage.
Now I will admit, I do like to style everything I have. I style my Myspace. I wish I could style my Facebook. It bothers me that I can’t. So isn’t this an issue? Is this simplicity in design that everyone seems to be emulating crushing creativity and what the web could be?
I say no. Great designers will always be great designers and will always innovate. Whether staying within this idea of simple, like Dan Cederholm’s Simplebits, or going in a bit of a different direction, like Matt Brett’s homepage, or something completely separate, 2advanced, designers are always going to push trends and styles.
So for those that don’t feel like spending the time to learn about design, why not give them an avenue that allows them to have something simple and usable, as opposed to that scattered, takes-a-day-to-load look? Yes it’s fun to parody(create your own web 2.0 logo anyone?), but I see it as raising the bar on standard web design. Great designs will never die. So maybe the everyman doesn’t have to look so bad either.

I’d like to do an episode of the Pixelspread podcast on this topic, so leave me a comment or an email(matt@pixelspread.com). I’d like to open a discussion, so if you have something to say, please speak up.