Where’s the Web 2.0 design factor in Indian startups ?
Even though Web 2.0 lacks a precise definition, I bet you all will agree to one point - Web 2.0 sites have a distinct style of design associated with them. Ample white space, big fonts, vibrant colors etc., all following the ‘less is more’ mantra personified by Google. At least for me, the less is more mantra works wonders in terms of usability.
If you follow the Web 2.0 startups in the US and elsewhere, you’ll notice that even the smallest of them manage to do a kick ass job at the Web 2.0 design front. Even the ‘n’th video sharing site or the umpteenth social networking site, they adhere to the Web 2.0 design standards. Several of them pack enough punch to evoke oohs and aahs too.
On the contrary, when it comes to Indian startups, very few seem to be drinking the Web 2.0 design kool aid. Only a handful of the startups seem to give the necessary importance to design and usability while for others, design and usability still remain an afterthought.
Several of the so-called Web 2.0 startups seem to be very amateurish and sloppy from a design perspective and dont work correctly on FireFox. The sites may have all the ingredients of Web 2.0, but they lack the essence of Web 2.0 design. I do not want to sound harsh or overtly critical (takes a lot to start and nurture a startup), but I’m a huge proponent of the belief that good web design can work wonders towards usability of a website.
So, why is web design and usability being disregarded by several of the startups ? Is it the case that they can not afford to hire professional web designers ? Or is it too difficult to hire quality web designers in India ? Or is design not of paramount importance for these startups ?
What do you think ?
June 17th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I had exactly same question in my mind and I got a couple of answers.
June 18th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Hi Pranav,
People in India still live into the maintenance and feature development. They still feel that technology is more important than the functionality. I probably think is the main reason behind such a sloppy user experience websites. Also bad quality of standards in Quality assurance (I myself facing problem in recruiting people for my company), People know all the tools but they don’t know the simple product testing manually. Culture is changing but it will take sometime for people to get in the consumer Internet product mentality.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:39 am
U are so correct , i have a hard time getting Web 2.0 designers here , also most indian are just using scripts like phpfox,pligg etc with lameass templates so the useless output in the end.But it has to do more with the higher management and project managers. End of the day Designers do what they say and also they are the ones who apporve thier useless designs.
But all is not lost there are good sites too one of my fav indian Web 2.0 designed site is Burrp.com - Pretty cool design. Also i did some 2.0 design on my indiantvschedule.com .
June 18th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Actually I do agree with you that usability is not something that even the most used websites are considering seriously about. And certainly for startups where “stickiness” factor is of utmost importance…usability is something that they should keep as their top priority.
I tend to disagree, though, with the Web 2.0 thing. Though web 2.0’s definition is quite debatable, but this is for sure that web 1.0 was meant to be for presentation and web 2.0 is more do with creating websites through user collaboration aka user generated content.
Therefore usability was important in web 1.0 and is important in web 2.0 in the same way. AJAX and related technologies, in my view, add to the usability factor by making websites more responsive.
And one of the reasons why Indian websites are not taking usability seriously is may be the lack of people resources available with the right talent. Today in India, you can get people who know a lot of Photoshop, Corel Draw and Macromedia Flash but it is difficult to get people with ample knowledge of CSS and HTML. And this is the reason why every other website renders differently on different browser!
June 19th, 2007 at 12:35 am
It’s time indian web sites realise the importance of user experience.i do agree that technologies like ajax play a very crucial factor in user experience, usage at the right places is even more crucial.some of my fav’s that have used ajax in the right manner are-yahoo(usa) stock quote section,ixigo(a travel portal for air line booking),indyarocks(socialnet from India tat’s in private beta).These sites have used the right technologies in the right places and i love using them again and again
June 19th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Hmm..
From all your comments, it seems that there’s a talent crunch when it comes to quality designers ? How acute is this problem ?
June 20th, 2007 at 4:09 am
It seems that Indian startups still did not focus on user experience, users would not care your backend, frameworks… but frontend
July 16th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I think that the problem is not so much the availability of designers, but is more about the understanding of the web 2.0 psyche in an average Indian programmer. I must say that out of 10 developers that I interview, 7 havent heard of AJAX, 6 dont have a clue what web 2.0 is, and 8 (!!) still feel that rediff / naukri / shaadi are great sites. There is a long way to go.
One great web 2.0 product for the right domain at the right time worth mentioning here is ixigo.com ( http://www.ixigo.com ) - these dudes really know what users want and how they want it to be placed on the screen. Also, they seem to have a knack of the domain which is also extremely important alongwith the design, since i have never found a different fare on their site than on the airline site - maybe ajax does the trick.
I also like burrp and buxfer - category definers in web 2.0 !!