I critiqued a whole bunch of web 2.0 sites on a combination of design and usability aspects, placing more importance on the usability aspect. I tried to focus more on sites that provide a good community oriented experience, designs that encourage people to participate. After all, that’s the staple of what “web 2.0″ is.

The final result is 10 sites that I feel are the best combination of both good design and usability. The list is in no particular order.

Top 10 web 2.0 designs

Cork’d - I absolutely love Cork’d. If I had to pick one of the sites on the list that I like the most this would probably be it.

Newsvine - Newsvine is a social news site, a place to read, write, discuss, and share news. Green is a hard color to design with, but Newsvine has done a fantastic job. It looks great with the grey/silver color combinations.

Digg - Another one of my favorites. Not only is digg one of my favorite designs, it’s one of my favorite sites period. digg’s design does a great job at encouraging user participation.

Blurb - Blurb offers book publishing software so anyone can create and design a book. They’ve really done a great job with the design, it’s very captivating.

FireFox - I think this is actually the second post in a row that I’ve mentioned FireFox.

9rules - 9rules is a blog network that’s all about community. The site is all about the content and they’ve done a great job bringing it out and making it very accessible.

Snap - Snap offers a new, different way to search. They have a very clean homepage and yet it looks great. What I really like are the interior pages, specifically, the search results.

Simply Hired - Simply Hired is simply easy to use. The bright colors used in combination make for a fun color scheme. The home page is super simple to use, it’s fool proof, Google style.

Blogger - Who would’ve though Blogger, a Google product, would ever make a list for best web designs? I guess with Doug Bowman and Adaptive Path being a part of it that should come as no surprise. They’ve actually really done a nice job with it.

Pandora - I was a little torn on adding Pandora to the list. They don’t have the best looking site, but then again it’s not bad. What I love about the site, besides the actual product itself, is how usable it is, and I can do it all right on one page.