Week Seven | Part Two

The Evolution of Web Design (cont.)

The first Web content writers were not designers, but researchers with a profound sense they were pioneers of a new medium. Their main tools, HTML 1.0 and HTML 2.0, were designed to display text, images, and hyperlinks --- a remarkable feat when you consider the important role this technology would have on our culture.

Because HTML works left to right, top to bottom the logical placement for something important would be across the top of the page or along the left side. The first release of HTML placed the emphasis of design on block-level tags. Compelling design would have to wait.

It was a bland beginning, with the exception of the introduction of logical divisions ... though the importance of the <div> tag would not be realized unitl a later release of HTML

The release of HTML 3.2 in 1997 standardized extensions to HTML 2.0 first proposed in 1995. Of particular interest were:

• The introduction of tables
• The introduction of image maps
• The introduction of text flow controls

We have already explored how you can use tables to organize Web content in lectures four and five.

Image maps, in contrast, allow you to turn an image into an area for navigation. You don't see these often now, but for a while they were a popular form of navigation.

Text flow controls were another useful addition, but the full implications of using the <div> didn't become apparent until about the year 2000.

Within two years, software developers working in conjunction with W3C recommendations released HTML 4.0. It was the most significant enhancement to the Web since the release of NCSA Mosaic --- the world's first widely adopted Internet browser --- in 1993.

The release of HTML 4 promised provide greater cross-browser functionality so one Web page design would look about the same in different browsers. This didn't quite happen, though there was significant progress.

HTML 4.0 came with several features that Web designers were quick to experiment with. The principle enhances brought to the Web by HTML 4.0 included:

• The introduction of frames
• The introduction of I-frames
• The introduction of cascading style sheets

Please go to Week Seven Part 3 ».