Many clients ask about Web 2.0 features as they have heard this phrase before and of course, it sounds like the latest and greatest. In some ways, it is. Web 2.0 can be very complicated or can be basic, clean and easy. Our goal in using Web 2.0, especially within eCommerce design, may be a little different than some of the over-the-top Web 2.0 sites.

How Web 2.0 works in eCommerce design and development: When designing an eCommerce website we look at the user experience. The question we try to answer is “how could the user experience be easier and quicker?” The goal of any eCommerce site is to get a visitor from point A to point B (ordering). If Web 2.0 features are distracting than it can hurt your site and send visitors in the wrong direction. An interesting navigation is great, but would you rather a user play with a navigation for 5 mintutes or learn more about your products? Website visitors have a certain amount of time to purchase an the quicker you can get them through the order process the better! We often use Web 2.0 and AJAX to load content without the page reloading. This is one of the most effective ways to use these features to make the experience easier. When going from one tab to another, for example, the tabs content can reload but not the whole page. When options are choosen on a products (red shirt, green shirt) the product image can change or fade to the next color. These basic, but effective, Web 2.0 features will give you site the edge needed to boost sales.

Flash or Web 2.0? A lot of elements or interactivity that was acomplished through the use of Flash is now accomplish through Web 2.0 development. Sliding navigation, fading images, roating photos and interactive experiences can be developed without the use of Flash. What the benefit? One, Flash is not always installed on all computers. If a visitor does not have Flash installed those elements will not dispaly for the visitor. If your navigation is in Flash, you’ve just lost a customer. Web 2.0 features do not include 3rd party programs to run (Flash does) and it will also allow the search engines to easily read all of the content within your site. eCommerce Search engine optimization is one of our key services and we always want to be sure everything we develop will be found by the search engines.

If you’d like to see some Web 2.0 examples check out Moo Tools. This will show you some basic functions that Web 2.0 Javascript can accomplish: http://demos111.mootools.net/