Visit London are rolling out a new identity.

The new logo (’Visit London’ and the body’s website address in red type) will replace

and the Totally London brand will be no longer.

And I’m sure you’ll agree, a tad less polarising than the London 2012 logo. The official launch will coincide with the Olympic handover in August.

The 11th Annual Webby Awards were handed out in New York on Tuesday. Yellowstonepark.com won the Tourism category grabbing both the Webby Award and the People’s Voice Winner. Wikitravel won for Travel and the People’s Voice Winner went to TripAdvisor.com.

The Webbys were first launched back in 2007. Here is a list of all the past travel and tourism winners: [Read more →]

I read on BBC news this morning that Jakob Nielsen believes the essentials of good design are being overlooked through the eagerness of web firms to implement Web 2.0 technologies.

I alluded to this in my comment in a recent post regarding the recently launched boo.com and that I felt the implementation of certain AJAX functionality had detracted from the user experience. Mr Nielsen also comments “They should get the basics right first,” and “Sadly most websites do not have those primary things right.”

Funnily enough, although, not particularly suprising, the writer cites a reference to the original boo.com regarding Mr. Nielsen’s warning of a return to the dotcom boom days, as an example of a site that looked great but was not easy to use.

AJAX is a development method for creating interactive web applications and can lead to more reactive browsing and contextual content. The prime examples are the multitude of flight fare aggregators that use AJAX to provide a fast user experience when sorting through flights without the browser reloading.

Implemented well and the enhanced user experience may well be a factor in a site visitor switching loyalty to a different travel company, however, it is important not to lose sight of the principles of usability design.