YouthNet blog
An insight into youth issues, volunteering trends, charity life and more from the UK charity YouthNet
All | Events | Youth | Technology | Volunteering | YouthNet | Charity World
Thursday Oct 19, 2006
TheSite.org Community redesign
If you haven't seen the redesigned Community section on TheSite.org (YouthNet's information and advice website for young people) yet, then take a look.
I've had no involvement in the project myself so feel (just about) neutral enough to say what a great job has been done. There's a massive amount of information to organise but it also needs to feel alive – much of the content, after all, is user-generated. I think the balance in this design is pretty much spot on.
It got me thinking about the impact of MySpace on web design, especially for young people. They've taken customisation to the point where usability suffers badly, but it doesn't seem to matter:
As Business Week has noted, MySpace has created design anarchy that works:
User pages on MySpace can look truly hideous (and many, many of them do), but the site's operators aren't trying to help users make their pages look better. If they were, they might offer some pre-built page design templates or color schemes, or even constrain the design choices users have.
Instead, the system allows users to do almost anything to the look of their pages, whether it's a good idea or not. Regardless of its aesthetic consequences, this customizability is one of the site's most attractive features, and the do-it-yourself sensibility of the site resonates with the audience's desire for self-expression.
It would be a foolish web designer that simply tried to mimic MySpace users' page designs, however. You can't fake the youth-look. On MySpace, as on TheSite.org's Community pages, the design works because the users really are in control.
Posted by Tom Green ( 11:15 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Posted by Dom on October 19, 2006 at 11:53 AM GMT+00:00 #