Damn. A commenter named Tory, responding to a 37signals blog post, has our number:
I know exactly what web 2.0 is:
- pretentious
- oversized fonts
- pastel colors
- buzzwords
- featureless “user experiencesâ€
- overly friendly and self-important copy
- acronyms
Basically it’s 1998 with less money and more metrosexuals.
Okay, so this overstates the point. But “featureless” doesn’t just have to mean lacking in function; it can also refer to the bland exterior that so many Web 2.0 sites seem to have glommed onto — design features apparently inspired either by a massive Liquid Paper spill or by T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men. And there, Tory has a point.
Yeah, those sites are clean. Surface-of-a-cue-ball clean. Endless-driving-on-the-prairies clean. But in some cases their design is becoming much of a muchness, and is starting to cross the border into sterility.
It’s largely a reaction to the design excesses of the past — and you can see an exhaustive list of those in the comments on Merlin Mann’s Web 1.0 Summit photo at Flickr. There are interface elements that don’t need beveled edges or drop shadows.
But let’s remember how using that third dimension can actually help organize visual information. How colour can convey mood and guide the eye. And how “visual interest” isn’t a dirty phrase.
Now, about that metrosexual crack…
