The Evolution of Websites

Evolution of Websites from 1990 to 2000:

Having been created in 1989, the world wide web was just starting out when our timeline begins in 1990. In fact, was 1991 when the first website would be created and today, it is hardly recognizable as it only had a single column of text.

Once websites became more popular, they would make leaps and jumps in appearances. In fact, two noteworthy advancements between 1990 and 2000 include the creation of table-based sites and a new software called Flash. While table-based sites were substantial because they made it possible to create websites with multiple columns, Flash was equally as unique because it gave websites the ability to have videos, music, and graphics with animation. Both advancements significantly changed the appearance of websites as well as promoted better user-experience and content organization.

Evolution of Websites from 2000 to 2010:

In the early 2000s, a programming language called CSS (cascading style sheets) became a widely popular way to build websites. At this time, CSS was used in conjunction with HTML which is another popular programming language. While only using HTML mandated creators to code each individual element on a website, the combination of CSS and HTML allowed creators to define elements across a website. Instead of writing out an entire website, creators could write the code for elements once (title sizes, colors, header images, etc.) and have it mimicked across the website.

JavaScript is another programming language that became popular at this time and is useful in a completely different way. In fact, its biggest superpower is that it can add animation to a website that doesn’t need to be read by a secondary program. Up until this time, Flash was pretty much exclusively used to add animation to a website. However, animations built with Flash could only be read with the program Flash Player and not every computer had it.

CSS and JavaScript gave creators more wiggle room and layout capabilities. As a result, the world wide web was seeing more websites using animated buttons and call-to-actions to interact with users as well as websites with uniformity, sleeker layouts, and more organized content.

Evolution of Websites from 2010 to 2020:

Although internet access on a mobile phone was available prior to 2010, it was in the years after 2010 that mobile responsive design became a priority for websites. This resulted in progressively minimal websites. For example, instead of getting the attention of users with flashy designs, designers began to focus on layouts that were tall and skinny. This ideology helped the experience on a mobile phone be just as delightful as that on a desktop.

Furthermore, although it can be argued that websites have been optimized for search engines for decades, it wasn’t until the few years before 2010 that creators began to competitively add it to their marketing strategy. As a result, the content of a website became about SEO and therefore, design became about the layout of the content. This only further stressed the importance of a bare-minimum layout. Soon thereafter, more and more websites were redesigned to have reduced navigation of only the main areas of the website, images that shrink on smaller devices, as well as content that gets straight to the point of the website.