Netvibes and RSS Feeds

We begin our Web 2.0 exploration at netvibes.com, a site started in France in 2005 for creating personalized home pages with content specified by the user, such as RSS feeds, web mail, to-do lists and other web apps.

Netvibes users, usually savvy web users and those in the know about new Web 2.0 apps, are motivated to have a site of this type because it is extremely convenient to have this information collected on one page. Netvibes is very easy to use, so even for the less sophisticated user, Netvibes affords an easy way to create this personalized home page.

In our study of interface design, we talk about the meaning of affordance. Affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of a thing. In other words, what is something for? Netvibes is for gathering on-line content in one place. After the user creates an account, the user has acccess to small text links for adding content, and small menu icons for collapsing and expanding boxes where content is shown. The user can mouse over title bars to reveals hidden tools and options for the content boxes. Tabs can be created for organization of feeds. The constraints of the site make it easy to use, and the simple interface make it possible to start using it without much instruction.

Oh, and don’t click the back button on the browser.