'Lazy designers' to blame for dot-com doom

NEWS Latham believes a bad year on the stock market for internet companies has been mirrored by a general decline in design standards. Speaking to silicon.com, Latham said: "It hasn't been a good year for the web. Despite all the wonderful technologies, which make for a more exciting future, I don't think people have really dealt with the needs of internet users in the year 2000." Even large corporate websites, he said, are devilled by broken links and out of date content.
Part of the blame is down to a shortage of skills, with many old economy companies struggling to compete with dot-com startups for internet-savvy workers. But they have also been over ambitious, according to Latham. Latham said: "A lot of companies have been projecting a bigger and more grandiose future on the web, and haven't even been able to keep their press releases and employment sections updated."