A Look Back at 30+ Years of Website Design

By pvaughan+myiakelly@hubspot.com (Myia Kelly)

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Web design has come a long way since 1991, when the first ever website was published. Exclusively text-based, this site marked the beginning of what would become a digital revolution.

And while recollections of “under construction” GIFs and blinding background colors make me thankful for just how far the web has come, there are some historical web design choices that actually demand a nod of respect.

Websites like this one haven’t been lost to time, either. If you want to see what a website looked like at any period since its launch, enter its domain name into the Wayback Machine and choose a date. In this post, let’s take a look at how web design has evolved, from text-only interfaces up through the sleek, modern designs we see today.

Early 1990s: Antiquity

The early 90s marks the start of our website design timeline. At this point, there was no such thing as a high-speed internet connection. It was dial-up modems, or it was nothing. Therefore, websites needed to be built for less-than-stellar connection speeds. They mostly looked like walls of text — what we now take for granted as “design layout” did not exist.

While later versions of HTML allowed for more complex designs, they were still very basic compared to today, consisting mainly of tags for headers, paragraphs, and links. Visual elements and styling like typography, imagery, and navigation were things of the not-too distant future.

Takeaways for Today’s Websites:

While the function of these early sites was purely informational, we can see some design elements that apply today. These old web pages were very lightweight and optimized for a slow internet connection we all still experience from time to time. These design considerations took the user experience into account, something today’s websites don’t always do, even with faster speeds.

Yes, today’s internet can handle media-rich websites … but it still has some limits. Large media files, heavy graphic design, and excessive animations can all contribute to higher bounce rates when load speeds aren’t as fast as we want. Keep your user in mind when considering complicated design, and remember to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Superhero).

Mid-1990s: The Middle Ages

The middle ages of web design were plagued by on-site page builders and spacer GIFs. (Better than an actual plague though, right?) By the mid-90s, web design had evolved both in terms of structure and appearance. Designers began using table-based layouts to organize content, allowing for greater flexibility and creativity. Sites were still quite text heavy, but text could now be divided into columns, rows, and other navigational elements for better readability.

Graphical design elements also quickly grew in popularity. Page hit counters, animated text, and dancing GIFs are just a few of the graphical elements that mark this period in web design.