In MySpace: Design Anarchy That Works, an article from about a year ago, Jesse James Garrett talks about the design anarchy on MySpace. Jesse states:
Regardless of its aesthetic consequences, this customizability is one of the site’s most attractive features, and the do-it-yourself sensibility of the site resonates with the audience’s desire for self-expression.
I guess all of us in professional development or design have looked at the chaos that is MySpace, and wondered why whoever runs it won’t pull it from the 1990’s. Or, like one of Jesse’s commenters points out:
The reason MySpace works is because even those with no Web knowledge can design easily. The funny thing is those of us with much knowledge have the trouble.
The most intriguing thing about MySpace if you ask me though, is the fact that so many people use it to it’s limits. Here we are, getting ready for Web 2.0, bragging about usability and Rich Internet Applications, while everyone over at MySpace is hacking away on inline CSS and copy pasting HTML tags from the movies they just uploaded to YouTube. It seems that while we are doing our best to make everything “usable”, users will go through anything by the threat of looking uncool on their MySpace site.
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