The semiotics of Web 2.0.
Over the past year, we’ve done a fair amount of design work for technology companies. As a part of that process, we’ve looked (and laughed) at the Web 2.0 clichés that almost every company adopts.
Above is one of the slides we’ve used. On the left you can see the cliché of cuteness. This manifests itself in cute little phrases, cute little icons and even cuter little mascots. Company manifestos aren’t immune to the cuteness disease, the most famous is, of course, “do no evil” from our friends at Google. On the right is the cliché of blue and green. The colours of nature, soothing, peaceful, all full of natural goodness. Can’t be anything here to hurt you can there?
Of course, this is the point (even though I am pretty sure most of the “designers” aren’t even aware of it), Web 2.0 companies are attempting to present a friendly, easy-to-use face and disguise the fact that there’s often quite complex technology at work behind the scenes. They are also trying to get us to adopt new behaviours and wrapping stuff up in a “super-friendly” (ugh) exterior is a simplistic (but effective in some cases) way to achieve their goals. I think of this as design for the lowest common denominator.
However, there’s also a more sinister motive, because the heart and soul of Web 2.0 monetization is data about you. For all the talk about the social aspects of Web 2.0, the only relationship that has deepened significantly is the one between you and your favourite Web 2.0 service.
Google knows more about me than almost anyone. My searches are confined to their servers, my passwords are confirmed on their email system, my RSS is consumed on their reader and because I tend to “star” posts more often than sharing them, they also have a deeper understanding of what I’m interested in than del.icio.us.
Of course you wouldn’t knowingly give up all of this privacy to anyone other than a spouse…or perhaps a pet? Or maybe you’d whisper it to the wind?