The web 10 years ago

It is interesting to see how web design has developed over the years. 10 years ago web design was a basic form of delivering information in an organised way with tables and the odd animated gif to catch the users eyes. Now it has become an art.

In this article I will look at how 3 of the biggest websites (Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple) have developed over the past 10 years.

-

Microsoft

Microsoft today is actually quite a nice looking website, the homepage is anyway. They have learnt to organise vast amounts of information on products, services, resources and help over the years and have never gone too far away from the original designs.

1998 (10 years ago) | View

The 1998 Microsoft site had a left navigation menu, a header with the MS logo in the top left and the main site links in the right. The site was based around tables.

-

2002 (6 years ago) | View

2002 saw a but more colour but still had a similar layout to 4 years its previous with the logo in the top left and the main page links in the top right, however the navigation menu changed a bit and has stayed the same to this day. The website was still based on tables.

-

2004 (4 years ago) | View

2 years later, Microsoft customised their homepage a bit better to make it easier for people to browse their ever expanding content rich website. Their menus and header were still the same, although they did add a rollover to the left side menu. The site was still based around tables at this point.

-

Today | View

On the 17th December 2006, Microsoft took the leap and redesigned their homepage to the way you see it today. Finally they ditched the table way of doing things and created a design that people were talking about for ages, it highlighted a great way of navigation through a similar interface to what you see in your file manager. The new design was a success.

-

Yahoo

Yahoo has long being one of the biggest online portals, it was launched back in 1994 when it was named Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web. It became very famous in the dot com boom of 2000 - 2001 and has remained to be a very successful site. It, like Microsoft, has stuck to some very similar designs over the years.

-

1998 (10 years ago) | View

Somewhat Google like, Yahoo had a very simple layout and design, white background with black text and blue links. The logo in the top middle and navigation links to the left and right. Yahoo also used tables back in 1998.

-

2000 (8 years ago) | View

In 2000 Yahoo had colour and was a bit more packed in, it was no longer to columns of links, it had became separated to showcase Yahoo’s ever expanding services.

-

2004 (4 years ago) | View

2004 saw images and more organisation. Yahoo by now had a massive selection of services and needed to implement better use of space. However, 6 years since the start of Yahoo, it still had a similar setup, white background, blue links, black text and the logo in to the top center and navigation links to the left and right.

-

Today | View

Today Yahoo has changed considerably. Everything is more spaced out and the site uses more colours and images. Due to its vast range of services, the navigation links have moved from the sides of the logo to a menu list down the left hand side of the page. It has made use of a tabbed interface to deliver the latest entries from their content services such as News. It’s main services are in the right sidebar and the table layout has been scrapped.

-

Apple

The modern Apple has been a leader in good design through their website, their products and their company image. But were they always good at design. I am going to look at how Apple has developed as a website since 1998.

-

1998 (10 years ago) | View

Apple 1998, hmm well to todays standards, not that great. However, back in 1998 this was pretty good use of space. They laid the homepage out nicely with very little text making it easy for users to go to where they wanted to quickly. Obvioulsy, Apple had an advantage over Microsoft and Yahoo in that they only really had 2 products, the Mac computer and the Mac OS. The navigation links were nicely placed near the bottom of the page and the massive Apple logo filled up the top left space. And they used a news ticker to display their latest news. Oh, and if you fancy a nice read and reminisce about old times check this out, I love Mac humour.

-

2000 (8 years ago) | View

2000 saw the popular Apple design that has been present for quite a few years since. With it’s aqua look, the new design astounded visitors, this was really a step up in web design.  The 2 level menu system was a hit and  they still made great use of space by using images instead of trying to cram in a whole load of text.

-

2005 (3 years ago) | View

5 years on and Apple will still using a similar setup, only now everything was much more cleaner. They still used large images rather than text and that news ticker was still above the fold of the page just like it was back in 1998 although it was now much nicer looking.

-

Today | View

Apple stayed with the tabbed design for 7 years before taking it that step further when they scrapped the tabs for a cleaner more modern look. However things still remain the same, for example the use of images instead of text, the news ticker and the modern sleek design that Apple was leader in.