20 Best Websites of 2008
We spend a lot of time every year researching trends and discovering new design ideas. This year, we decided to share some of the best designs and redesigns we came across.
Websites were judged on the quality of the user experience, ability to meet business objectives and inventiveness of the interface. They appear in no particular order.
Brochure Websites
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Seymour Powell is a product design consultancy firm. Their Website is simple and elegant. It features some very nice interface tricks. |
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Barcinski Jean Jean is a Dutch interactive agency. Their Website is very different. It can be viewed with or without 3D glasses… |
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Marketel is canadian ad agency. Their Website succesfully recreates the mood of their office space. Simple and playful. |
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Breaking Bad is an American TV show. The show’s Website is barely usable but got me watching the TV show… Exploratory Websites can sometimes work because they are not very usable. |
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Every year, hundreds of designers try to reinvent navigation. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Bio Bak is an example of a site with a different and interesting navigation system that works. |
Ecommerce Websites
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This Volvo Website makes good use of the decision tree idea. Extremely intuitive even for non-Swedish speaking users. |
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Macmillan is an American publishing company. The Website’s information architecture is excellent. The product carroussels and product pages are very well designed. |
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Lou Paris is a French lingerie company. Their Website combines the elements of experiential design with simple ecommerce functionalities. The result is quite interesting. |
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Gap is a retail clothing store. The shopping experience on their Website is everything it should be. Products are easy to find, product pages provide the right information, summaries are easy to understand and the transactional flow is clear and (not too) directive. |
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Plus belle ma maison is a French home improvement Website. It is definitely a must-see site. Every detail was carefully thought of. Possibly the site of the year. |
Applications
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Mint is an American personal finance management tool. The design is incredibly simple yet complete for a financial application. Security concerns are properly handled. |
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Wufoo allows people to quickly create and connect Web forms to databases. Their application is fun and easy to use. The childish design works well with the objectives. |
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Delicious was redesigned earlier this year. The new design is clean, fast and simple. A lot of thought seemed to have went into making everything fast and easy to use. |
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Photosynth is an amazing tool that creates 3D renditions of landmarks using images provided by users. It is also a must-see Website; the technology is amazing. |
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Standout Jobs allows companies to create and personalize a career site. The interaction design and user experience of the application is very impressive. The graphic design is clean and simple. |
Content Websites
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Cyberpresse is a Canadian news site redesigned earlier this year. Although it is not the most visually-pleasing Website, it is very usable. The interface feels natural and the content is easy to find. |
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NHL.com is the Website of the National Hockey League. The new design is a big step up from the previous. It is faster, easier to use and the graphic design works well. A lot of options were revisited; the usability is now a lot better. |
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Now Public is a user-generated news site. The design is simple and does a lot of interesting things to increase user participation through comments, publishing tools, signup, etc. |
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Bleacher Report is a user-generated sports site. The information architecture is clear and the design is clean and professional; it works well. |
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BBC.co.uk is the homepage of the British news channel BBC. It is very easy to use and personalize. The design is clean, simple and uncluttered which makes it stand out from the other news sites. |
What are some of your picks for 2008?
Related:
- 9 inspiring Web uses in 2008
- [Design ideas] SAP, Bloglines, Gap checkout
- 10 Best Application UIs of 2008
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Nice list Etienne – I especially like Mint’s design…too bad the service isn’t available to Canada yet.
This really interesting Article. you have done good job. Its really helpful to make new idea about web design. you have shared good information with all.
Thanks for the comments. Lots of research went into this post, I’m glad you appreciate it.
Thanks for the efforts for compiling this amazing list. All websites are unique and modern, simple effective, just like they should be.