History of Web Design
Examining the history of web design enables us all to appreciate how far we have come. Web design has been critical in the forging of internet content. Indeed, it has evolved from basic HTML production to much more. Even so, user experience design has emerged. Indeed, the art of web design has shaped how we consume new information. The online sphere has become an important part of our lives, work and business. Thus, businesses today are inseparable from it.
History of Web Design – In the Beginning
Tim Berners-Lee published the first website in August 1991. This website was a simple text-based page. It had plain left-aligned text and bright blue links on white background. However, web design as we know it was born in 1993 when early browsers began to display images with text (as opposed to in a separate window).
Developing Web Design
The World Wide Web (WWW) Consortium, formed in 1994, established Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) as the standard. By 1996, more websites focused on the following elements:
Table-based layouts for Web Design
First is Table-based layouts. This created additional design options by providing structure and multi-column layouts more complicated than HTML could produce at the time. Table-layouts allowed for navigational columns (or rows) to be incorporated with contents. Also, visually, images and text could be juxtaposed. Even more, adjusting column widths and quantity gave designers the chance to use principles of design, like the rule of thirds.
Cascading style sheets (CSS) for better web page structure
Secondly, Cascading style sheet (CSS) was also a focus. CSS provides markup that determines the structure of multiple pages instead of creating new markup. CSS gave designers more creative control, allowing them to design around the purpose of the site and fine-tune details. Flash-based designs came to fruition in the late 1990s. It was more practical than Shockwave and presented more layout and design options beyond HTML. Rudimentary CSS-based animations were possible for years. However, it wasn’t until the late 2000s, when sufficient browser support was available. It was then, that CSS was really used for website development.
Design Details and New Influences
The dot-com boom at the turn of the century demanded better web design among competitors. Usability, accessibility, layout, color choice, typography became important. In fact, the became elements of top priority when designing websites. However, CSS-based design gained popularity due to its advantages such as reduced markup clutter and cleaner layouts with visual consistency. Also, separated design elements from content. In addition, we also have improved page response time.
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