My post yesterday about Web 2.0 and it’s evolution has made me want to write today about Web API. This can be used as a broad term. Perhaps for me a rather good article on this comes from Web 2.0: APIs Instead of GUIs by Bobby Woolf on the IBM blog. In this he looks a Web 2.0 and points to it being the third stage of the web (the stages being static, dynamic and web services). These Web API come in all shapes and sizes and have a nice ability to please all. Don’t like the way something looks but love how it works? No problem for a Web API. It just does a wonder woman twirl and transforms itself into your wildest uptime dreams.
Some may think this means the end for the concept that is websites. The above mentioned article points this bell toll for our beloved html driven gas guzzling motors. I perhaps think this is a rather man in the street with a “the end of the world is nigh”. I don’t take this alarmist approach. I think that this just means that we will be challenged to come up with designs that work across the board. A website will have to work harder than a bit of flash.
The user is becoming more demanding and as designers we have to reflect this. You can no longer impress with a simple rotating animated globe gif. The website has changed and the web design has to along with it. As a visual digital medium the nature is constantly changing and so has to what is perceived as a website.
