Web Design 2.0 – 7 Differences Between Then And Now

Image: iLoveButter

Here’s Eva Vesper from Web Hosting Search – a small, independent web hosting review site. She will be presenting her view of the web design revolution: what was then, and what is now. Enjoy!

If you like this post, please do give it a thumbs up on StumbleUpon, or save it to Delicious!:)

Just like fashion, web design has its seasons. Seven years after the bubble burst, the Internet rose once more, becoming a natural and easy exchangeable way of communication. In a short period of time we have seen trends come and go and user patterns change dramatically. Let’s

Web Design 2.0

As the Internet is getting older and its passengers more experienced and regular, things are slowly changing. Extravagance is trashed for functionality and ease of use, demands are increasing and so is the number of web devotees. Web standards are to be taken seriously (though only a small percentage follows it to the T). Design has become an aesthetic experience: how it looks, feels and functions is very important today.

Less Flash

A couple of years ago web design was a craft measured by your flash skills and how much animation you could fill into a design template. People wanted big bright lights, sounds, and motion to decorate their sites. But now, flash design is out. It is bulky, not completely followed and indexed by search engines, and when flash design goes wrong – it goes terribly wrong. Few sites have implemented flash design in an appealing and user friendly way.

Less Image Links

The transition back from flash to proper script languages like HTML or PHP is a “Web Design 2.0″ necessity because now, web designers are coding for the ease of search engine spiders, mainly Google. Image links are also difficult to deal with in a website. Remember in the 90s, most sites had the “enter” icon or the flying envelope icon for “email me”? We all know those cheesy icons are dead but so are useless image links. Banners are great but when a site puts up more than a dozen, it degrades the site and lowers the standards.

More Glassy Icons

One type of graphic that seems to be here to stay is the shiny and glassy icons. Buttons in particular are these days often designed to look encapsulated in glass. A little detail that has stuck around, both appreciated by designers and web users.

More Professional Image Content

Since it is text content that registers the best with the search engines, that’s where the focus lies in web design as well as SEO. But in the future website dynamics more images/photos will take a bigger role in creating quality content. Not only will the demand for better web copy increase but also the demand on better graphics and digital image content.

Cascading Stylesheets (CSS)

When it comes to developing website and applying web design of the 21st century, CSS stylesheets and CSS developers are setting the standard. By CSS we are talking about proper CSS, separated stylesheets. For too long content has been mixed with presentation. For too long, class and id (CSS terms) have been confused with each other, thus incorrectly used. The way led by the World Wide Web Consortium, the time for a proper CSS standards has come. Web browsers are urged to get in line and so are you.

Separate Top Sections, Strong Colors, Bigger Text

Strictly talking web design (2.0) of the new internet, it’s all about the above mentioned features. A clear separated top section or header covering the main page in width and normally going up to 200px in height with a strong color and distinct logo. A color scheme with stronger and brighter colors to more efficiently draw the attention of the visitor’s eye. Blue and green are two popular colors used by many web designers, as they reflect trust and honesty and adds credibility to the website.

Both general content and headers, are typically of a larger size. This in consideration of how our eyes adapt to reading on computer screens. Text in larger sizes has been proven not only easier to read but highly appreciated since it allows the visitor to not sit so close to the computer screen.

Center Alignment

With left alignment being the typical structure in the old days, having your website centered in the web browser window is today’s standard. This stimulates the feeling of space on the website, making it easier for visitors to navigate. Center alignment is very common amongst blog websites and it also works well with the user scrolling.

Your Thoughts?

So there you go. Fashion may be temporal, but there are always some classics, and some things which carry on for ages… What do you think of the matter? Any changes, between then and now, you can think of?

Contributed by: Eva Vesper of Web Hosting Search. She’s one of the social media folks that twitters away in her spare time; okay work time. When she’s not twittering, she works at WHS: a guide dedicated to finding cheap web hosting. Confused, lost or hate your provider? Stop by and drop a question to Eva.