The Gong Show

I think a big component driving the current wave of web services (web 2.0) is far greater attention to user experience and usability. Web apps today are easier, friendlier-looking, snappier, and more-intuitive. However, there are a few usability merits of the first dot-com boom that are now lost in this second wave of services. So, I thought I’d put together a quick nostalgic list:

1. Domain Names: Pets.com was ituitive, it represented shopping for pet supplies. If someone made a pet food store in web 2.0, it would be Petterific.com, Petio.com, Pe.ts, or some other peppy, unspellable iteration of the word “Pet.” The domain name system is going to be crushed under the weight of domain squatters and increasingly decentralized web services.
2. Permalinks: A URL used to be a unique means of identifying a particular document on the web. Those days are long since dead… killed, initially by POST requests increasing usage, and finally (and thoroughly) by AJAX services with no respect for URL usage to capture a web app’s state. Now, we are all at the mercy of product designers that are thoughtful enough to put permalink features into their applications. And, if the product designer isn’t so thoughtful? You’re screwed.
3. Alt-Tab: The shortcut keys I use more than any other in Windows is “Alt-Tab,” which lets your flip between open applications. However, now that most of my applications live in my web browser, Alt-Tab is essentially useless. It offers me a choice between Outlook, Excel, and All-My-Web-Apps-In-One-Tabbed-Browser-Window. Pain in the butt for efficient working. I use Ctrl-Tab in the browser to flip between browser tabs, then my muscle memory starts to get confused between Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Tab, and I use the wrong command at the wrong time. In the original boom, people used one window per web service. Granted, this is Firefox’s fault for popularizing tabbed browsing, but I think it’s safe to lump Firefox in with Web 2.0. It was on the Webware’s Top 100 after all.
4. Browser Application Alerts: Services like Meebo which require try to call my attention in a browser window are particularly annoying. They don’t integrate well enough with the OS alerting system (such as making the task bar flash when I have an incoming message, etc). Furthermore, I’m always accidentally closing my Meebo tab when I close the entire browser. Passive web apps which require time-sensitive interaction need a serious usability overhaul.

I definitely don’t want to go back to the days of third-party popup blockers, <marquee> tags, and animated gifs galore… but I do miss some of these usability merits that web 2.0 forgets all too often.