Digital Design Blog

Top 12 Digital Design Posts of 2008, So Far…

We have hit the halfway point in 2008. So, as we start to gear-up for the July 4th holiday weekend (and put the Digital Design Blog on a short vacation), I thought it would be good to review the top posts of the year, so far:

1. IA Summit 2008: User-Centered Design Is Dead? — Mia Northorp’s piece on how Jared Spool challenged the tenets and effectiveness of user-centered design at this year’s IA Summit.

2. IA Summit 2008: Do Real People Really Use Tag Clouds? — My post on the ever-evolving behavior of today’s digital consumer and a closer look at whether or not they are adopting the features and functions associated with Web 2.0.

3. Scrolling: Do They Or Don’t They? A Data-Driven Analysis – Grace Preyapongpisan debunks the common web myth that users don’t scroll. And she has the data to prove it.

4. On Muxtape, Twitter and The Future of Web Services and Platforms — My ramble on why marketers need to be creating — or at least participating — in the creation of scalable platforms when we develop products or services.

5. Information Visualization and The Art of Making Data Easy To Digest Online – Mia Northrop looks at “information visualization” and how it attempts to take data and reveal insights, so that people can quickly understand it — making the data useful, and even attractive.

6. The World’s Most Recognized Brand Spent How Much On Advertising?! — Mia Northrop point out that Google, now considered the most recognized brand in the world, spends next to nothing on advertising.

7. Understanding Micro-Interactions and the New Brand Ecosystem – Julia Debari’s much-discussed post on the future of brands and how micro-interactions are key to shaping consumer experiences.

8. Enter The Zooming User Interface (ZUI): Spatial Experiments On Rise — Mia Northrop’s look at the emergence of 3D aspects into browser-based UIs.

9. R/GA, AKQA and Avenue A | Razorfish on the Future of Digital Agencies — A report from the Avenue A | Razorfish Client Summit in New York where the CEOs of each company talked about the future of digital advertising and the role of interactive agencies.

10. Consumer 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Changing Moods Metrics and Monetization — A recap of the Web 2.0 Expo panel that I participated on with folks from ComScore, CNET, Quantcast and Peanut Labs.

11. Does The Homepage Still Matter?: Why Distribution Trumps Destination Online — My take on why advertisers, publishers and marketers are still placing too much emphasis on the role of the homepage when all of the data is telling us to do otherwise.

12. Note To Start-Ups: Advertisers Could Not Care Less About Your Site, App or Widget — Marisa Gallagher’s report from the Under the Radar Conference in Silicon Valley on social media and entertainment.

What can we learn from all of this? Certainly there were a few items that struck a chord with all of you: the future of user-centered design; the adoption (or not) of Web 2.0 features; the changing rules of web design (and page design) and the evolution of new web services like Muxtape, Twitter and the like.

Thank you all for a great six months posts and comments. We are looking forward to some big things later this year, including a new Digital Design Outlook and Digital Consumer Behavior Study, and can’t wait to get your reaction.

Now please join us in stepping away from the computer and go out to have some fun in the sun.