Design Interact: Insights -this1reMySpace
series where responder answers set questions (I guess), starting with 1.What’s currently your favorite site/project?
here, Chris Henderson says MySpace...
how the Web is evolving. In the past, sites have been looked at as tools to get information and resources. In the very near future (and I think MySpace is one of the strongest examples of this) they will be all about communicating with other people.
Another reason it’s so interesting is the number of active users on the site. People are always on it and engaged with it in some way. The member pages harken back to the early days of the Web when people made personal pages for fun. You never know what you’re going to find. It’s all about building a community that people want to belong to.
What makes it technically compelling? Being able to maintain the whole thing. I think I heard that it’s currently the fourth most-visited site. Just the scale of upkeep for something with so much personalization is amazing.
How would you improve it? Or would you? It’s totally chaotic and that’s what I love about it, but to make up for the chaos they could think of a stronger global navigation to give users more of a sense of location.
What’s your job? Interactive creative director. Where do you work? At Olson in Minneapolis. It’s an 80-person, full-service agency that’s got a really non-traditional agency environment that stresses, above all things, integration and collaboration.
What’s your biggest Web (design) turn-off? Sites that feel like they are more about graphic design than communication. Keep it simple and don’t be afraid to embrace the obvious.