(thestorm.co.uk)

This year real-time webcasting floated out of the geek domain into the business world.

Feel free to join below to view a B2B webcast created over the phone using BrightTALK's user-friendly tools.

Web 2.0 is a trend. A trend about encouraging people to express themselves, take control and collaborate.

It's a technology-driven articulation of the saying, "The customer is always right." It's about democracy, role-reversal and delight.*

The broad church of Web 2.0 is best illustrated by a range of websites:

• Wikipedia - the encyclopedia anyone can edit
  
• Seatwave - where your can directly buy/sell unwanted concert and theatre tickets
• Google Ads - anyone can advertise or publish adverts
  
• Digg - ‘wisdom of crowds' applied to rating new website content
• Zoho Writer - where anyone can collaborate on Word-like documents
• Geni - where scattered relatives can build family trees
• LiveJournal - where anyone can become a columnist

A challenge to traditional business

At first glance Web 2.0 threatens traditional business approaches, for example:

• Many Web 2.0 businesses give away valuable services, in the hope that users will like them so much they will upgrade to your ‘premium' versions
• The freedom of some services may allow users to act in unexpected ways - ones that may not generate a profit, or may be critical of you
• Your visual brand may be undermined as users rearrange the design of ‘their' webpages

In fact many aspects of Web 2.0 are so challenging that it is difficult for most companies to convert wholesale to it, even if they have reason to do so.

However, gains can be made by gently applying its ethos across operations - especially in intranets.

In later articles we will explain how to do this.

* There is no accepted word-perfect definition. The most authoritative explanation is this article by the man who identified the trend.

Is your content up to scratch? Our checklist will help you judge.

1. Who is it for?

You cannot write good copy without an audience in mind. Your words, concepts and tone of voice will not flow. Good writers often visualise a reader as they write. In the same way, a good website is written with key visitors in mind, depending on the site section, subject matter, and visitors' anticipated tasks. Are your pages written this way?

Read several web pages which target a particular audience. Do you sense the words are addressing those people, or could they work for everyone - and therefore no-one?

2. Do the links draw you in?

A poorly written link will destroy the most engaging, business-critical article: no-one will click on it so no-one will read the article. Almost as bad is a link which promises one thing but delivers another. A good link will be sufficiently interesting to invite the click and will send you to the content you were expecting.

Do your headlines highlight the most interesting, relevant aspects of the destination content, and do they do so accurately?

3. Are you squinting?

Your eyes find it harder to read from a computer screen than from printed paper - especially when you start scrolling. So you need to make your text as clear as possible, increasing the chance that people will keep reading. This is as much a page-layout issue as a writing one, but the writer is still largely in control.

Find the densest pages on your website. Do you see long slabs of words, or is the screen punctuated by short sentences, short paragraphs with gaps between them, relevant lists and supporting graphics?

4. Does it read professionally?

Newspapers have few spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, inconsistent terms and clashing formats. This combination of assets imperceptibly helps lift the copy high above the average - as it can do for a website. The secret here is not world-class writers but methodical checking.

Do all contributors use a standard set of writing guidelines? Are all pages proofed before they are published? Is all the content up-to-date (and is anyone responsible for checking it)?

5. Should you talk instead of write?

The written word is not always the answer. Videos, voice recordings and webinars (Powerpoint presentations with a voiceover) can help bring the driest material to life. An increasing number of business sites use them. Then again, they can be a liability: amateur productions can deflate the finest content and even destroy reputations.

Is your most valuable content delivered in a variety of ways - from image-led web pages, to Flash graphics to video/audio? Does it look/sound professionally produced?

We thought relaunching our own website would be a breeze. But the project generated three weeks of unnecessary heat and light. This is why:

1. Don't get too close to the development

Doctors healing themselves are nothing compared to Web agencies designing their own websites.

Voices were raised over the value of the daily updates, tea-rounds ignored because of the location of the Contact Us link, silences pregnant over page-template choices.

We half-jokingly considered getting in a consultant to give a fresh perspective... It was a sharp reminder of the different priorities that members of our client teams have - and we now have even more respect and sympathy.

2. Don't shorten the methodology

Because we build online systems for a living we somehow thought we could intuitively knock our own website together in one anarchic week.

In doing so we chucked our own design book out of the window. Ouch. Within days it was clear that the site had no foundation and we would have to return to basics.

Three weeks later we delivered the kind of process-driven user experience that we so adeptly produce for everyone else. Ahem.

3. Don't delay the user research

Decisions about design which are made in a vacuum are often wrong, and rarely convince anyone of their validity.

We found the only way to get around endless internal debates was to ask our users what they thought.

Thanks again to our very forthcoming clients: in a shot we were all agreed on key design directions, since the users clearly articulated their preferences.

4. Ignore the technology at your peril

Some design purists deliberately ignore the restraints of the technical environment they are designing for.

They insist that the minutiae of users' needs come first - and that the developers will simply have to spend weeks building workarounds because the system doesn't allow certain functions out of the box.

By choosing our own content management system and adapting it ourselves we became viscerally aware that you cannot be too dogmatic about this - and that, ideally, the choice of technology should form the initial stage of the User Experience design.

5. Take a lead

Despite Point 1, we were - and are - very civil to each other, and no single person consistently bulldozed the decisions.

Since we are all experts in overlapping fields, this behaviour was appropriate.

But it reminded us: on client projects we sometimes need to forcefully and logically state our point of view, lest we get bogged down by less informed opinions.

To future clients we apologise, but this approach saves everyone's time and nerves.

Too often the design process is associated with luvvies hurling their toys out of the pram, squealing, "I cannot work with this material!"

The truth is that while many designers create wonderful user-driven designs, there are several variants on The Precious Designer.

As a light-hearted exercise we have outlined four common designer types. No prizes for guessing which one our own Matt falls into...

Secondhand Designer

Secondhand Designer trudges the same formulaic pathway with every client.

It will dawn on you before long that all his best ideas are no better than your own.

And haven't you seen them somewhere before? Oh, yes, your competitor.

Where's the value in this work, you scream to yourself? He's a nice enough chap, laid back and personable - but run for the hills: you don't want your project to be undermined by this sloth's lack of application and imagination.

Superior Designer

He appears to listen but doesn't actually hear a word you say. For him your design is already crystallised in the genius of his mind.

You, the client, are merely a vehicle for its glorious transformation. And don't question his creativity unless you want to endure the fury of a designer scorned.

Don't get saddled with this one - you'll never be happy with the end result because it won't have been intended for you from the outset.

Logical Designer

A strange bird. He believes that creativity and logic are mutual bed-fellows.

He thinks that all visual elements must have a purpose and be able to justify their inclusion in any grand design.

He questions every element, asking if it ties in with the business drivers and if it helps users do what they said they wanted to do.

He engages with clients in workshops and debates with his colleagues to create designs that support the content and navigation.

He has the work ethos of a City trader and the skill of a trained artist. Like we said, a bit odd.

Preening Designer

A perfectionist with an astonishing attention to detail. However, once the final pixels are Photoshopped to the most gorgeous shade, that's it: job done.

Be warned. Don't touch the final product because if you scratch the highly polished surface you'll find no substance underneath.

This stylist takes no pride in understanding business requirements. For one reason or another he reliably manages to miss the point of what you are trying to build.

Consequently, you'll be redesigning within six months when your customers drift off to sites with designs that make sense to them.