The Web History of Loyola University Chicago
Recently I became interested in the web history of Loyola University Chicago, and I wanted to see how the design and layout have changed over time. I used the WayBack Machine to search www.luc.edu. for its history. LUC was founded in the 19th century, but its first website was created by the end of 1996. In 1996, with the development of HTML language, it became obvious to companies and organization that a public Web presence was necessary, including LUC. The basic website language was matured and HTML 3.2 was released in May 1996, and it provided opportunities for everyone to be able to create their own websites.
The website didn’t have many significant changes from 1996–1998. Looking at the website during that time, the space looks very blank. It only has one LUC symbol, one picture of the school grounds and some hypertexts to different categories of information, such as Academics, Admissions, etc. It also has some hypertexts at top right.
In 2000, the layout changed significantly. The LUC web added a background picture and became more organized toward the center. One interesting thing is it had a Weekly Web Focus.
In 2004, the university started to use LOCUS system, Loyola’s Online Connection to University Services, so the front page added a hyperlink of LOCUS and a search engine on the web. The new website also started to use motion pictures at the right corner.
After the web got a new layout in Sep 2004, the website didn’t change much until June 2007. At this point, Loyola started to use more hypermedia. In June, Loyola started to use motion pictures to present Loyola Blog. From July, the website got a big change. Those categories with hypertexts are more organized and clear, and the hypermedia are more developed. When I put the mouse on pictures, the new motion appears and I can use the link on it to go to different contents. That makes me feel more involved. When I click each yellow slanted bar, I can see a new topic with a new set of pictures on the media plate. People can see more content without leaving the major website.
Another interesting change I saw occurred in Sep, 2010, the website added small symbols of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. downright of the website. At the same time, the new Loyola iPhone application released.
There was another major change on the website in 2013. The whole content expanded and became wider. The News and Features with hypermedia on the big background picture looks more three-dimensional and beautiful. The website added more boards in the middle. Everything looks more organized and clean. The story behind the top picture showed members of the 1963 LUC men’s basketball team visiting the White House and meeting President Obama.
From 2013, the changing websites looked very similar to the current website. They moved the part for News and Features down and added more boards for different contents. The whole page looks very modern and well organized. One of the interesting boards called @LOYOLACHICAGO includes a Twitter Bird graph. It shows some school features in Twitter form, which is very cool.
Although people in the 20th century became able to code, they didn’t put a lot of efforts to add pictures and design because the online media was not very influential and powerful at that time. What the LUC website could show was so limited in the past time. Gradually, as we are going toward the digital society, the web creates a better representation of the university by adding hypermedia and hypertexts.
