30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at CERN in 1989, came up with the core tech – URLs to address a document, HTTP to define how to send documents between computers, and HTML to format documents. He also made the first web browser, which you can see our website on here https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser/#https://www.webnetism.com/
The Web gained mainstream appeal with the Mosaic web browser in 1993, which allowed text and images to be shown on screen at the same time.
In the mid-90s, tables were introduced which allowed for the first steps in web design, as the layouts of conventional print documents could be emulated.
The dot-com bubble, a period of heavy speculative investment in new, online only companies, started around 1995. With the increase in commercial sites, design became a more serious concern. Initially, the only option for animation were GIF images but then Flash was introduced to provide a more dynamic audio-visual experience. At the same time, PHP was introduced to the back-end to create dynamic pages.
The bubble burst in 2000, leading to many tech companies going out of business, but the period left its mark in internet infrastructure and advances in databases and server structure.
In the mid-00s, CSS was maturing as a design tool and the flashing, neon designs of the 90s were starting to give way to more subdued designs. The next revolution came in 2007 with the release of the iPhone. The initial idea of a separate mobile site has given way to responsive design and the current design trend favours flat design: minimalist layouts that emphasise function.
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