The Business of
Web Design
Latest Trends in Web Design
and Web-based Applications
19th February 2009

Erskine Design
Simon Collison
www.erskinedesign.com

In the olden days...

Web standards

• Separation of content, style and
behaviour
• Faster and easier workflow
• Embrace current methods and principles
• Accessibility by default
• Leaner code uses less bandwidth, and
serves pages faster

HTML, CSS & the DOM

www.csszengarden.com/

Accessibility

• If a website is not accessible to
everyone, it fails
• Accessibility is not just about disability
• Content repurposed for any viewing
device
• No compromises. Every user gets every
bit of content
• Microformats (what?)

Usability

• An accessible site is not necessarily a
usable site
• Be aware that each user will have
different needs
• Common sense approaches to user
interfaces
• Don’t make them think!

The Rules

• Responsibility to all users
• Scalable, long-term approaches
• Methodical and inclusive processes
• Keep things simple
• Accountability

Microformats
www.microformats.org/

Grids

Rhythm & Type

Wireframes

Blogs

www.kottke.org/

RSS

www.feedburner.com/
NetNewsWire

Music, Podcasts,
Video and
other Downloads

www.beatport.com/ www.youtube.com/
www.daytrotter.com/ www.hypem.com/

Web Applications &
Social Networks

www.myspace.com/
www.last.fm/

http://twitter.com/

37 Signals
www.37signals.com/

Carsonified
www.carsonified.com/

Happy Cog
www.happycog.com/

Oh... and Google
and Yahoo!
and Microsoft
and Apple
and the gambling industry
...and then there’s the porn industry,
which I know nothing about.

APIs and Mashups

Acquisitions & Value

• Feedburner bought by Google for $100m
• Photobucket bought by Fox for $250m
• Last.fm bought by CBS for $280m
• Treehugger bought by Discovery for $10m
• StumbleUpon bought by Ebay for $45m
http://www.seoconsultants.com/google/acquisitions/
http://startup.partnerup.com/2008/01/02/2007-acquisitions-web-internet-technology//

• Launched in February 2004
• Turned down a $10 million offer months later
• Now has over 450 employees
• Turned down $1 billion from Yahoo!
• Microsoft bought a $240 million stake in it
• Over 70,000,000 users
• Annual revenue is only $150m, yet estimated
value is $15 billion

The Mobile Web

www.apple.com/

Survey

www.alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults

www.alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults

www.alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults

www.alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults

The Unexpected

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Summary

• Specialise: choose one path and stick to it
• The web is about the users, not the designer
• Be responsible and accountable
• Keep it simple
• Beware of the teenager!

Any questions?
Please be aware that the internet is a vast
landscape that changes every five minutes, and I
don’t know everything about all of it...

Thanks
Simon Collison
erskinedesign.com