Analysis: In the first of a two-part column, prominent Web designers and developers talk about what was hot and what was not in 2005.2005 was a busy year for Web design and development.
Web standards continued to gain acceptance. Developers began to turn to Ruby on Rails for its mixture of extensibility and ease of use. Web 2.0 was a favorite buzzword. At times it seemed we should just slap a sticker on the calendar and call it "2005: Powered by AJAX."
This was the year small development firms and individuals released big (as in cool) applications.
Adobe bought Macromedia. Flash started its comeback. Microsoft moved into the design arena and showed previews of Acrylic and Sparkle.
Some marquee sites redesigned: Salon.com presented a new text-heavy public face, complete with video blogs, for its tenth anniversary. The Onion redesigned as well, offering a "straight man" community newspaper aesthetic.
The redesign of the University of Florida's Web site demonstrated that it was not only possible, but desirable and attractive, to separate structure from content on a very large scale.
Click here to read about Macromedia's second-generation flash media server.
Some designers also noticed problems. Despite the introduction of great technologies like SiFR, there seemed to be little innovation in—or even understanding of—the finer aspects of graphic design.
"There's so little illustration, photography and adventurous typography going on," said designer and blogger Khoi Vinh, "that I genuinely worry that we'll never match the heights of graphic design achieved in the last century."
The Visual Web 2.0 Meme
But let's start off on a light note, and it doesn't get much lighter than the visual aesthetic surrounding Web 2.0.
"For some reason all the sites labeled 'Web 2.0' look the same to me," said Dave Shea, a designer and proprietor of mezzoblue.com.
"There's a similar minimal aesthetic between sites like 43things.com and basecamphq.com and flickr.com, etc.
"I keep hoping someone will realize web apps don't have to have white backgrounds. Also popular has been the friendly, cuddly aesthetic: rounded edges and fonts, bright colors, cartoon-like illustration."
You don't have to be a designer to notice the trend. Just check out some of the more prominent Web 2.0 companies: Rollyo, Odeo, Skype, Goowy and Squidoo, for starters.
Jason Fried, one of the principals of design and development firm 37signals (and arguably one of the meme's originators) sees the Web 2.0 meme as positive.
The trend is definitely toward "larger font sizes, bigger form fields, pastel colors, and more centered text," he said.
Not to mention rounded corners and the shiny wet chrome look.
"Most of the time [these designs]meant that design got more fun, taking itself less seriously and avoiding its inward-looking preoccupations from earlier in the decade," said Vinh.
"At the same time, you could also argue that it got less diverse, with a narrower range of expression than before, too."
Next Page: AJAX and Ruby break through.
Richard McManus and Joshua Porter wrote a great introduction to how Web 2.0 impacts design and development.
AJAX and the Small Business App
Adaptive Path's Jesse James Garrett coined the term AJAX in February to describe online interaction techniques that use asynchronous data calls to a server to minimize page refresh times.
AJAX, and more powerful programming languages like Ruby, seem to be the biggest technological factors in allowing small businesses to develop Web applications, like Adaptive Path's Measure Map.
"Firms like Firewheel Design and SimpleBits have been doing everything from web design to icon design to book publishing to web applications," said Shea.
Support for AJAX development rising. Click here to read more.
Vinh agrees: "Designers getting out of the client services game and building applications of their own took off this year, but next year there will be more designer-driven applications than ever," he said.
"I've seen a few of them and there are some dogs, but there are also some brilliant ones in the pipe."
Grids and Typography
Last December, Vinh redesigned his personal site using an extensive grid layout.
After that post made the rounds, Dave Shea posted his insight on columns and grids in Web design.
The always didactic Mark Boulton followed these posts with his series "Five simple steps to designing grid systems."
Also much on Web designers' collective minds was the use of type on the Web. Most of the commentary centered on the observation that designers were using bigger type.
"I think Coudal Partners deserve credit for pioneering this direction, but I see it as an industry-wide trend," said developer and Mac nerd John Gruber.
"Check out the new sign-up form at Odeo for an example of just how big fonts are getting."
Coudal Partners' Chicago neighbors, 37signals, were also much enamored of large type.
"I'm all for the bigger text—you can't argue with clarity, as long as it's not 'excessive clarity,' said Fried.
"The other nice thing about larger font sizes is that it naturally forces people to write less. You just don't see 10 paragraphs of 20 pt text, which is a good thing. Less writing, clearer writing, is a fantastic side-effect of the larger type movement."
Boulton did designers a great service with his "Five simple steps to better typography" series.
Mike Davidson, who recently brought his company Newsvine out of stealth, contributed to Web typography with SiFR.
Next week, I'll talk to some more designers about CSS, standards, microformats, video and Flash.
Web Design 
