Hobbes’ Internet Timeline charts the development of the internet. There’s no question that the pace of change is fast. A few key developments:

• 1984: DNS introduced.
• 1989: more than 100,000 available hosts.
• 1992: more than 1,000,000 available hosts.
• 1994: Pizza Hut offers online pizza ordering.

Anyway, I like to visit the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to see what various sites looked like before–and then compare to what they look like today. When I do this, I’m usually suprised by how, at first glance, the design of many of the sites I visit seems static. Why is this? Given how fast things are changing elsewhere on the web, where are the breakthroughs in interface design?

For example, take Amazon from October 13, 1999:

And compare to Amazon today:

If Amazon went back to their ‘99 model, I’m not sure I’d be immediately able to tell the difference (ignore the green arrow–that’s an artifact of the software I used to create the images and not actually part of site).

Here’s ESPN from January 25, 1999:

And ESPN today:

NY Times from November 12, 1996:

And NY Times today:

I like the new version.

Finally, Google from December 2, 1998:

And Google today:

Essentially the same, aside from a few minor cosmetic changes.

To be fair, all of the above sites have made countless important changes that aren’t visible when considering simple screenshots (eg Ajax). Still, I think that usability in general, and interface design in particular, has plenty of room for improvement on today’s internet.

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Postscript: take a look at Yahoo from October 17, 1996:

And Yahoo today:

I think Yahoo has made significant improvements (though their site is a little busy).

Posted by Dan Grossman on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 11:14 pm.