Technology keeps on changing and upgrading with time and need. Innovation is only the key to success in today’s competitive world. New trends pop in by upgrading the old ones. The same goes for when we talk about web design and its trends. In the current scenario, one can see a drastic development in web design trends. It has become very crucial to have a highly responsive and interactive web design created by super brain UX designers for a mind-blowing browsing experience especially while catering non-tech savvy users. Web design has come very far today but still, some old web design trends are in our minds and we nod them with respect. Let us have a look at them and reminisce about our memories.

Hit counters

If you have seen or come across a website from the 90s then you would have not missed seeing the number of visitors blinking at the bottom of the website. Indeed wondered how it was it helpful to you but still somewhere felt good looking at it. It was deployed as the data tool to have some metrics to know the popularity of that particular website. Today however people do not find it appealing especially in the era of Google Analytics, AWstats, and other popular and authentic metrics. However, we may see a renovated version of this old trend in some websites in the form of smart feed count displays such as the total number of RSS subscribers/ social media followers displayed in the website header or sidebar.

Display of Best viewed Badges like Netscape 4.0

In the early 90s and 2000s, it was a very common trend among web designers to display small print advisories or badges at the bottom suggesting which would be the best browser, shockwave version or screen resolution (best viewed in 1024×768) the visitor should use to enjoy the content or get the best from the website. These advisories images were usually linked to the source for downloading the stated browser, thinking it was the responsibility of the user to surf the web in a specified manner. The developers were sure that the user would be ready to flick from one browser to another or adjusting the screen resolution as defined in the standards to surf the web at its best. This seemed strange when compared with the latest standards of web design and expertise of web designers.

Under Construction- Internet Archaeology

During the 90s, it was very important to inform the user if any website was in the process of development or production to avoid them to get on to a page without content and ultimately leaving the page. “Under Construction” logo surely is an old rend but still used with some innovation that is “Coming Soon”. This surely holds some curiosity among the visitors and motivates them to come back to know the latest changes. Moreover, today some web designers add some engaging messages along with timers and Call to action buttons to turn the website more interesting and interactive. Thankfully, few websites, which are in the developing phase take a smart move by adding, links that take the user somewhere instead of leaving them without any information.

Flashy Design

Flash technology enjoyed the monopoly in the mid-90s and was a well-accepted software platform, which permitted designers to integrate multimedia features such as music, animation, and videos on websites to ensure an outstanding audio-visual experience. Creative designers dominated the web -design with interactive menus such as splash pages, bubble buttons, or eye-catching animation to make the website more appealing. However, the condition for the users to have the latest flash plugin in their computers limited the usability of that particular website. Moreover, it Flash had some loopholes such as stability issue, performance glitches, security gaps, and compatibility constraint with mobile devices. This made way for HTML5 advances. HTML5 came with the advantage of being an open-source, fast, worked in native web browsers, and consumed less power.

Ugly Frames

Frames during the 90s was considered as a way for pages to load the contents of another page inside a window. However, these frames encountered errors such as frame-breaking or printing issues as and when the internet was, slow. Frames also faced many issues in SEO, which ultimately got them into trends of the past. Today web design has reached a new level of maturity resulting in well-designed websites with minimum technological issues coupled with seamless navigation and interaction.

Conclusion

Web design with innovation in technology is moving towards the next level by upgrading the retro method. Today designers put their heads and creativity to combine the old and new trends to come out with revolutionary web designs. Today the base of developing a web design is no longer, what we can do rather it is shifted to what we should do to get the optimum results. Web designers are no longer restricted to technology but they are evolved to ensure an extraordinary user experience while browsing the websites.