Many young people today, digital natives, have the impression that the Internet and web pages have always existed, but those of us who are a few years older know that nothing is further from the truth. Although the evolution of the Internet is progressing by leaps and bounds, the truth is that the first web page was created in 1991. Since then, the road traveled has been short but intense .
THE FIRST STEPS OF WEB DESIGN
Mosaic was the first commercial-use browser that allowed access to online content. In these early years of the 90’s, Internet connections were so slow that web design was practically non-existent . The sites consisted mainly of text, the colors were limited and the use of fonts, animations or video was something of science fiction.
However, the hypertext language HTML was already used, which had been born years ago with the objective of a type of functional communication rather than entertainment. The first web pages were created with optimal data transfer in mind .
THE APPEARANCE OF HTML2
Between 1992 and 1994, the HTML code was expanded with new fragments, giving rise to a more complex language that allowed an important advance in web design .
With HTML2, web designers were able to start introducing new elements, such as icons, background images, buttons and banners . There is also a new way to organize content in menus and lists. In these years, there was an evolution of web design in terms of structure and appearance since developers had tools that allowed greater creativity.
ANIMATIONS ARRIVE TO THE WEB PAGES
Already in the middle of the decade, HTML3 emerged , richer in tags and offering greater flexibility. This new language, together with the use of tables and the incipient CSS style sheets, contributed to improving the aesthetics and visual appearance of web pages .
But undoubtedly the great novelty at this time was the introduction of animations with the birth of the now reviled GIF format. The appearance of Flash also brought great capacity for graphic innovation to web pages, which went from being static to being dynamic .
From this moment on, web design focuses on the user experience. The structure of the pages and usability become the center of interest for developers.
THE EVOLUTION OF CSS
Another great leap in web page design was the advancement of CSS, which allowed content and design to be worked separately . This brought great creative freedom, reduced loading times, and simplified site maintenance.
At the same time, the aesthetic trend evolved towards increasing white space and less use of intense colors, all in the interest of greater usability.
WEB DESIGN TODAY
The birth of web 2.0 is a turning point that no web design company can ignore. Multimedia applications , interactive content , social networks and mobile devices involve a deep review of page development . Now, together with the evolved HTML5, new languages ‹ ‹such as Javascript, PHP, XML or ASP are used.
Minimalism, fonts, flat colors, infinite scrolling and icons are the main trends that emerge in response to the adaptation of design to mobile devices.
In short, the user experience (UX) has become the axis around which web design is structured in recent times .
