The formation of web design dates back to the 90s, while before that it would have been said that the Stone Age ruled in computer tech. Websites in those times were just text, and lacked visual content. For the first time, text met with an image in 1993- and the history of web design began its countdown.
The history of the internet is inextricably linked with the invention of the web – back when hypertext existed, its presentation had to be arranged somehow. Web design was born from this necessity and it’s continued to develop alongside the internet. It took on new challenges like mobile design and animation for an effective user experience. Web design has come a long way. Today, websites are user-friendly, informative, and functional. The development of web design is what has made it possible for these changes to happen in the first place and we want to tell you the whole story about how it happened!
The foundations for web navigation were laid in the 1980s by Tim Berners-Lee during his time at CERN. This was in the process of creating a hypertext system and led to a worldwide communication system. As a result of these efforts, In 1990 the first text browser was published, which allowed reading hyperlinked text files on-line. This service was made available to the public in 1991 but has been slow to get traction.
The first website, created by technologist Tim Berners-Lee back in 1991 was mostly text and had many links about the World Wide Web (WWW). According to the website, it’s still there for all to see.
A new historical stage in the development of the Internet was the release of the first version of the Mosaic graphical browser in 1993, developed in 1992 by Marc Andreessen, a student who studied at NCSA.
The browser’s success was largely due to its intuitive interface, stability, ease of installation and availability across all major operating systems. It was the first popular browser to be cross-platform, meaning it could be used on Windows, Mac or Unix. The release of Navigator and the Internet Explorer browsers both followed.
From 1994-96, the sites began to light up with bright colors. And this was thanks to the appearance of colorful backgrounds. The novelty caused nothing but praise, and some not so harmless use of bright, flashy colors. There is a legend that if you look at these sites now, you can go blind. As time passes, more and more options are added to these sites. In addition to everything else, it becomes possible to add different fonts like Times New Roman and Courier New.
One other early form of internet animation was the GIF.
Sites got a lot simpler back in 1997-1998 because of the appearance of tables, icons and effects. These things made navigation a lot smoother as no extra clicks are needed to access something. FLASH-technology is also advancing and as a result, it’s now possible to add “flashing” screensavers. Sometimes they can cause a major malfunction, just like backgrounds before them. The period was characterized by the active integration of marketing into design. Marketing was deployed almost on every site in the form of flashy advertising banners with loud slogans.
With the help of Adobe Photoshop, designers can create and manipulate their designs with ease. Designed for many different aspects of design work, it’s been a popular choice among designers since its beginnings. Raster graphics were around for a lot longer than vector graphics, and so designers in the 90s used raster-based Photoshop more often because that was what they knew better. For 20 years Adobe have been the only industry player in their field.
Right now, rounded corners and flashy buttons are the ‘go to’ trends in web design. Boring backgrounds are done and gradients rule the roost. These design choices began fulfilling their purpose and work better than their predecessors. Websites can become much more functional and user-friendly.
The 2000s saw another breakthrough in web design development with CSS. This technology can swap between content and design on the fly and still keep the site performant. The period from 2004-06 is considered to be the beginning of this era for web design.
Web design has changed rapidly because of the newest web design trends, such as flat interfaces, high-quality videos, pop-ups and banners. Designers are now interested in readable content with functional animations that can be embedded into it.
Since 2007, there has been a significant increase in the development of mobile applications. For this reason, there is also an increased development of mobile websites. There are more and more adaptations for small screens and limited data connection speed consumption. In the first social networks, icons were beginning to be placed across websites. This resulted in longer layouts for sites. Stock photography was becoming more popular and skeuomorphism started to gain traction.
Here’s what happens when the pendulum swings back in favour of web designers. Back in 2012, skeuomorphism became a dirty word and visual content was simplified as much as possible. Designers at the time called it “flat design”.
New elements such as spinners, interactive and mobile-friendly animations, videos and GIFs have been introduced in web design. The old trend has gone down and new trends have popped up as well. Along with that comes large bolder fonts, bright colors and eye catching icons.
At first, designers tried to use novelties from various historical periods, but then they understood that simplicity was the best choice. Later, their love for minimalism began to grow. During this period, design trends including flat design and parallax became more popular. Websites were designed to be as user-friendly as possible.
Recently there have been several new approaches to design emerging, and in principle they support the trend of “flat” design, as it allows you to utilize space well and focus the user’s attention on what’s important – that is, content.
You see a lot of scrollers on Reddit, the nostalgic sort usually with pixelated pictures and galactic backgrounds. High resolution visuals are also becoming popular now.
Framework and microservices seem to be trending as of late. As much as that is the case, though, it’s still a completely different question.
Web design has a strong connection to the way people think. Most trends were successful and then some, but there were still some misses when it came to innovation.
It’s no wonder that technologies on the web are changing fast. Having new trends in web design and ways of presenting content, there’s a huge range of possibilities and one trend can easily be replaced by another. It is worth noting that development does not only happen unilaterally – changes also relate to the way we consume information. We’re starting to see a transformation not just with bits of iron and technology, but also in our own brains.The idea of “clip thinking” is heavily discussed as a response to the growing amount of knowledge out there. There are a number of methods for how people think and act with web design.
The share of mobile traffic has increased in recent years and the time spent on mobile is often longer than on desktop. The trend of more users going online to search for quick-fix solutions for a variety of tasks has led to the development of the website and web design industries.