Web designers in Newcastle must start embracing new design philosophies

A quick look around the sites produced by leading Newcastle web designers reveals fairly standard formats that deliver the old-fashioned “brochure-style” efforts we were all discovering a decade ago. Web design in Newcastle seems to be stuck in the Web 1.0 era.

Some of Newcastle’s agencies are designing extremely attractive Flash websites that look great and do almost nothing for the businesses they serve. This is a big concern and means that many businesses in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley are missing out on the benefits of modern web strategy and social media concepts.

The world is spending more and more time online and Newcastle’s web design community must ensure that their customers are going to be competing on an even playing field.

As I look around my own household today I see the evidence of new media increasingly dominating our lives. I am posting this from my laptop in the lounge room. I have been using my iPhone all day to communicate on Twitter and Facebook with contacts all over the world. These people have been directing me to a multitude of interactive blogs and sites; sites where we can comment, vote and share.

My children play against each other and their friends on their Nintendo DS or get online to play Webkinz, a kind of Second Life for kids that also allows them to chat with friends around the world. For them, this is natural and intuitive. Meanwhile my wife has just purchased a Blackberry and is beginning to spend more time on this 3rd screen technology.

My point is that there are now so many more media options online and via the emerging mobi formats and we will all be consuming them with increasing vigour.

Web designers have to start thinking about media, not just digital brochures. They have to start creating sites that encourage discussion, interaction and sharing. They have to start incorporating more of the freely available online technologies capabilities like video, audio, polls, feeds and mapping.

…..and that’s before we even start on search engine optimisation.

The successful corporate websites of tomorrow will be more like Young and Free Alberta, incorporating multi-media and social media. This very successful site uses: blogs, Twitter (micro-blogging), Flickr (photo sharing), an interactive community calendar, web polls, YouTube videos and a Facebook page.

They are thinking like a media channel not just a website.

Here in Newcastle, web designers must begin thinking the same way or their customers will be left behind.