It hasn’t been that long since the first generation of websites hit the internet. The evolution of web design has, over time, been expected, in this article, we are going to take a captivating look at how web design has evolved over the last few years.
There has been a remarkable evolution on the web over the past two decades. The entire design process has changed and nowadays, different design languages are used to create websites. Since then, the evolution from basic web pages to the current complex web apps that now rule the market has been amazing.
How Web Design Has Evolved Over Time
The First Generation
By today’s standards, first generation websites didn’t have aesthetics in mind. The technology was still very young and the main focus of designers was to achieve functionality. This is why first generation websites only feature the most basic aspects; links, text, and navigation.
The hyperlinks were underlined and distinguished with the rest of the text with a blue color. As you can expect, the text was arranged like in a text editor without much emphasis on formatting. Navigation was also vertical, with page scrolling being an intricate part of the design.
The Introduction of Tables Captivating on Web Design Over Time
After a while, it became necessary to make web pages more complex in order to incorporate more features. As recorded by Arstechnica, the first ever GUI system in Windows came in 1990 with version 3.0. This system pioneered the possibilities of GUI on the web as well.
You start seeing tables on the web in the mid-1990s, bringing more functionality to websites. Designers were able to create text that was in blocks. The design thus improved significantly and more complex websites made up of a richer structure became commonplace.
The Flash Era
After a long time with a basic design captivating that focused heavily on text, new software called Flash was introduced in the late 1990s. This software made it possible for website designers to incorporate multimedia into the websites. The first ever videos and music were thus able to make it to the web because of Flash.
The software was also instrumental for the development of the first generation animations. Without a doubt, Flash marked an important turning point in the web. Most of the new designs that you can see today, including Avast secureline design, all owe their sophistication to the possibilities that came because of Flash.
CSS Captivating on Web Design Over Time
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), is a coding language that is widely on the web. This language was present in the 1990s but its prominence came in the 2000s. CSS takes credit for being the language that made the web more sophisticated. While flash was able to bring a great visual appeal to the websites, the overall design was still very rigid.
CSS was able to remove this rigidity and it allowed for the development of the first generation of social media websites. CSS have the key focus being on improving the presentation of content. It is because of CSS that web design over time look started becoming common and captivating in the market.
Current Web Design Styles
In the 2010s, we have been able to experience the full maturity of web design. The incorporation of text, graphics, and animations to the web has become normal. The focus has now shifted to making design simple and adaptive to different environments.
This is why the flat design has defined this era. The idea behind the current designs is to provide functionality in an aesthetically-pleasing design that is also minimalist. Minimalism is necessary because people are simply not looking forward to being by impressive designs. Instead, the focus is on achieving functionality.
Concluding and Looking Beyond
The future of web design is not easy to predict. Considering how web design evolved the evolution over the last three decades, it is no longer possible to say that there are things that websites cannot be able to do. The future is thus not more about functionality but about what each website is to do.
There are still various technologies that are being in development which might determine how we consume web apps. Because of this, the experience is what remains to be the most important issue in web design. Future web design ventures will focus more on specialization and differentiation.
