I’m almost done with the first real draft of the web 2.0 style article. Draft zero is done; I’m reworking that now, smoothing and the like. One concern: I keep going back to the same examples, and I think I should tweak my approach to draw upon technologies (read/write, folksonomy, APIs) rather than specific sites (Wikipedia, Delicious, Google). Since I wrote the abstract, I’ve moved more directly parallel to Thomas and Turner, using not only their definition of style (albeit with one tweak) but their form as well, with my article now including a list of elements of web 2.0 style. I haven’t decided if I’m going to go whole hog and adopt their use of a “museum” as well; we’ll see what the editors think.
Anyway, here are the elements. The last three are “trade secrets,” stylistic fundamentals which appear to contradict the conceptual stand and/or are less widely apparent elements.
- Function comes first
- Functionality is complex and layered
- Function, not presentation, defines identity
- There are many kinds of readers and writers
- To simplify, support complexity
- Code provides transparency
- Networking changes everything
- Users are more important than any user
- Weak ties are enough
- 2.0 means evolution, not revolution
The more I work with it, the more I like T&T’s definition of style. Might be another piece in that.