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on December 16, 2008 - 6:45pm

Usability 2.0 I gave a two day workshop on User Experience best practices in Web 2.0 at Gallup (yes, the polling organization) in Omaha last week.

Here's a slide from the seminar I thought you might find interesting capturing Usability 2.0 (whatever that is). It is a take on the infamous O'Reilly diagram capturing Web 2.0 concepts. My favorite is"iphone like magic" because I have had clients asking for web applications with that description.

BTW, my definition of Web 2.0 for the Gallup seminar audience was:

  • The ambitious adoption and application of emerging technologies (eg. Asynchronous JavaScript; REST/SOAP API) in the post dot-com “hurry up and innovate” period.
  • Driven by a community of “hipsters” (eg. The Bay Area) internalizing and absorbing usability and User Centered Design methodology with the deliberate goal of creating cool, useful and usable aka ‘elegant user experiences’.
  • A movement backed by movers and shakers (eg. Google and O’Reilly press) that has supported an open-source ethos (free; share; contribute), community and infrastructure.
  • As of December 2008, no longer hype (e.g Ajax hype satire is still a running joke in corporate teams)…”Web 2.0” = core architecture that can be valuable (if applied sensibly).

Here's a definition from Wikipedia, which I think is right on:

According to Best, the characteristics of Web 2.0 are: rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata, web standards and scalability. Further characteristics, such as openness, freedom and collective intelligence by way of user participation, can also be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0.

What does Web 2.0 mean to you? Do you even use that word anymore to describe a desired web user experience strategy? (I don't).

p.s. I sent a client an email a few months ago and mentioned keeping current with Web 2.0 best practices and he nearly threw a shoe at me by email ;-) And this is a VP I have successfully worked with on some great 2.0 sites for his company. Anybody had similar experiences?

Best Wishes,
Frank Spillers, MS