Web Design History

First-Ever Web Design Page

The first-ever web page was created in 1991, and website design has improved drastically over the decade. On August 6th, 1991, Tim Berners Lee created the first web page. It was made entirely from the text. Those around it sure did ring in a new era of what we can only describe as the digital revolution.

With the website archive.org/web, the “WayBackMachine” allows you to search a database of archived screenshots of many web pages through the years.

Web Design History in the early 1990s

When the first web pages were deployed, dial-up modems were the only type of internet connection that existed. This low-speed connection inspired what early pages appeared and contained; no images or animations. Having images would just have been a deterrent for visitors to wait and continue to view the web pages. Also, there were no standards for web pages because the school of web design was in its infancy.

These web pages were created explicitly for relaying information and were designed with limited connection speeds. Subsequently, when later versions of HTML were produced, it allowed for more complex design capabilities. Although pages were still very rudimentary and contained mainly header tags, links, and paragraphs, they became more design-oriented. This period made many web designers begin adopting more ease of access and visual aesthetic elements. For example, fonts, images, and more intuitive navigation.

During this web period, website designers were introduced to table-based web layouts. This would change how websites would be created until responsiveness appeared. Tables are the core part of web history—this technique allowed for increased creativity and user abilities. This time, the text-based websites now had the functionality to divide the web page into columns and rows.

Web designers focused more on the page’s graphical elements and text information during this period. Pages also began to include more animated page elements, such as animating GIFs.

Tables were just a step in the evolution process of web design. Tables have shortcomings, but they were impressive at the time and an essential milestone in the history of website development. In addition, designers could understand how to position different elements into specific web page portions.

Flash was developed in 1996 and became wildly popular shortly after. Flash allowed for a multitude of new functionality that was previously considered impossible. It combined interactive web pages with design graphics. This period is best known for marking the birth of visitor-oriented design. Visual appearance, ease of access, and user experience were now heavily considered when creating web pages. Later, Flash was taken over by Adobe.

Website Designers at this time were using HTML4 and CSS2. CSS gained traction in early 2000 and allowed designers to separate design elements and content. Content and Web developers now have increased freedom, and content can be created solely by design. Also, at this time, web designers had a better understanding of website colors and color theory, so whitespace made more of an appearance with a minimalistic design. Images and icons began to have links attached to them rather than just text. Scaling and resolution were heavily considered in image placement along with image pixelation. Websites were becoming more functional along with visual appearance. The speed of the average user’s internet connection has continued to increase. This allows trends like gradients, dark backgrounds, and small text to become typical visual elements from this time.

During this era, webpages are starting to look like our modern-day web pages. Web developers are now integrating multimedia and interactive media content paralleled with the growth of social websites. Typography, color distribution, and icons define the prevalent aesthetic changes during this period in web development. Starting in 2003, social media websites such as Facebook and Myspace were developed and relied on Flash integration to display animations. Navigation and easy readability are vital considerations when creating a web page at this time.

The resolution of the average consumer’s monitor has increased to 1024×768, and has had access to an array of over 17 million colors for the first time. Because of this advancement, YouTube advises content creators to make videos for education or entertainment, a content-based video presentation.

This era’s webpages transitioned from the old Flash-style web page to a new skeuomorphic design style called Caramel. Skeuomorphism is the design style where the creator of an item/UI designs it visually, like its real-life inspiration. These skeuomorphic web pages typically feature stock pictures and realistic shadows. From this point forward, there is a drastic decline in pixel art and cartoon images on web pages.

2009-2010 Website Design History: HTML5 and Web 2.0

During these two short years, two significant advancements revolutionized how people viewed and accessed webpages; these advancements introduced HTML5 and web 2.0. These design approaches were largely successful due to the introduction of the iPhone. The first iPhone debuted in 2007 and marked the creation of adaptive web design. Adaptive web design considers mobile phones and tablets when creating a web page due to the difference in resolutions compared to a computer monitor; web pages need scalability.

Popular design characteristics of the time include glossy icons, illustrations, rounded corners, and contrasting colors. With the use of HTML5, web designers could now create sophisticated web layouts. This advanced programming increased in popularity and reintroduced old multimedia trends to new web pages. Also, responsive web development has become a key defacto for all websites nowadays.

2011-2012: Skeuomorphism and Flat

Skeuomorphism is the lead design concept throughout most web pages created during this period. Realism reigns king and brings a calm color scheme, natural textures, and multi-dimensional script. Graphic designers worked down to the very pixel to ensure that the intended image closely resembles the original as realistically as possible. Designers were creating depth through lighting, textures, and shadows. Realistic web pages ruled for a lengthy period, and it took web designers a long time to shift from realism. Minimalism is attracting a lot of attention alongside realism in web design. Minimalism became ideal for users and designers because users could now process more content and ideas from websites. Skeuomorphism is reaching its peak popularity, and there is a shift from the previously distracting elements to a more rounded package.

Flat design is now the standard for what is considered to be a good website. There are still accentuated design elements on the page, but they are made not to distract the user from the target message.

2013-2014: Skeuomorphic, Flat, and Google Material Design

The flat design scheme has become the favorite amongst website developers. Before surpassing the skeuomorphic in popularity, the two design styles were equally popular. Some avant-garde designers still use skeuomorphic design styles, but modern times have been long superseded. Minimalistic design elements include minimal text and images, a two-dimensional style with no shadows or textures to create depth, large fonts, GIFs, and bright colors.

During the year 2014, Google unveiled style guides which were coined Material Design. This was Google’s attempt at returning to a realistic design style, although the results appeared similar to the flat style. Google Material Design is what created the design style named semi-flat. This style was popular during this period and was an amalgamation of flat and naturalistic styles.

2015-2020: Semi-Flat

Mobile browsers and their users are now the focal points of consideration in web design. Semi-flat is phasing out the flat design style, which quells the dispute temporarily between realists and minimalists. Web pages are bright and whimsical, with minimal design elements. Realism is still prevalent as well but is minimalistic and contains depth. Defining design elements of this period include contrast, polygons, sounds, patterns, and realistic images. Websites are also now being designed in a way that creates the effect of having multiple interactive layers. For a website to attract maximum traffic, it must be made with ease of accessibility and convenience and appear sleek and modern.

During 2015 Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) were being pushed by Google. The whole objective here was to create web pages and websites with an emphasis on performance. In particular for mobile devices.

Future of Web Design History

No one can say precisely what the future has in store regarding web design. What we can do, however, is analyze the twenty-plus years of web development that had occurred to explore what trends happened when, at what time, and what caused the trend. Possible web trends that may arise in the future may be quicker and easier forms, increased animation and dimensions, GIFs on the front page of websites, a return to minimalism, menus that are not fixed to a position, better and optimized server-side scripting languages, and so many more.

It is hard to predict these trends because they are all envisioned within the frame of reference of the current possibilities. New languages or applications may bring about options that were once thought impossible in the future. If you were to ask the creators of the first web pages what an average web page would look like in 2020, they would not even be able to imagine the possibilities. He could not imagine it because the tools to create these possibilities do not exist. I would be in the same position as him if I were asked the same question. Twenty years from now, there will be web design capabilities that are unfathomable now. Could websites be a thing of the past? Especially as voice recognition and AI becomes more mainstream!