WEB DESIGN: EVERCHANGING
I’ve chosen to trace the history of my alma mater’s website. Though I attended Brownell-Talbot School in Omaha, NE for 14 years, the design of the website never changed for me, at least while I was using it. The website was altered multiple times throughout my time at BT, but for the eight years in which technology was required, the website looked relatively the same. I was interested to see just how far the website has come since its launch in 1997, and I’m fascinated by how it is always evolving. Though the content of the website remains roughly the same, the design and usability have been altered over the ages of web design.
Brownell.edu was launched in 1995 (though the first capture was in 1997), but the school Brownell-Talbot was founded in 1863. This means that BT has only had a website for roughly 14% of its existence; 22 out of 154 years. The impact the website and technology has had on BT is incalculable. Where information was once handed out to students or posted on campus, it now had its home on the World Wide Web. However, the function was the same; the function was purely informational. It was optimized for slower connections (slower than what we today are used to) and thus, relied on a heavily text-based site. Brownell.edu in 1997 is heavily influenced by the somewhat recent introduction of Flash. We’ve all seen those Flash sites. They are “Flashy” to say the least. Neon colors, crazy background, flashing buttons, etc. made up a majority of BT’s first web design.
2001 was my first year at BT and a welcome change to the website, ditching the neon colors and crazy backgrounds. This updated version of the site chose to focus more on usability, opting for a white background and links to pages with more specific, categorized information. It linked information to images, and not just text as had been previously done. It also incorporated the school logo I would come to know for the next 14 years. This update separated content and design and made usability the priority.
The 2005 website capitalized on the best improvements it had made for the 2001 site. It increased links via images and also simplified the bar linking to other pages within the site. Usability was clearly a very important aspect to users of the web, and the web designers understood this. The website also incorporated more images, but in an organized way, unlike the graphics on the 1997 site. This website was now easier to navigate, organized, and more aesthetically pleasing than its predecessors. Users go to websites for information, so being able to find that information quickly is essential. With this more straightforward navigation design and organized information placement, the website increased its value and usability immensely.
The year 2008 was a year where the Internet and the Web started to get moving towards what we now know as the modern web. The 2008 website was now more interactive and social, possibly capitalizing on the slow but steady rise of social media (Facebook was introduced around this time). The site now used color and white space to its advantage, and implemented multimedia. Though not seen in a screenshot, the main image cycles through a number of images at different time lengths. The website designers knew usability was important, and further improved the site by shifting the focus to content.
2012 marked my freshman year of high school, and I used the Internet and the school website everyday. This version of the site is the one my family and I were the most used to, as this design stayed put the longest. Again, the design team seemed to take notes on what worked the last time, combining it with the way other sites were designed. There was the focus on implementing multimedia and being interactive, as well as understanding color and white space. It seemed to now incorporate K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). Buttons and links were clearly marked, and the most important information was on the front page in respective columns.
Not much change was made to the 2015 version of the site. 2015 was my graduating year; the site had not changed over my time in high school. A few placement changes were made, and links to Brownell-Talbot’s respective social media pages were now included on the home page. This speaks to the value placed on social media at this point in time; not only was social media “essential” to students’ lives, but also to the school and other organizations as well. Social media was now a marketing tool, and this private institution was no stranger to marketing tactics, thus implementing links to the social media on the website.
By the time the website made its most recent and current update, I was no longer a student or in need of the website. However, my two brothers still attend, and so it is still used by them and my parents. The website was now a key component to the school’s information distribution, parent-student-teacher connections, and marketing. This update was a complete overhaul of the last version of Brownell.edu. Large background images and a heavy reliance on images themselves were the biggest change to the site. The site also simplified its color scheme, focusing on blue, black, and white, and ditched the use of white space for the use of images. Images are everywhere (but please, look at how cute my little brother is in the third screenshot, looking thoughtful with pencil in hand.) The links to other content and pages now resided on images, flatter graphics, and the site is relatively minimalistic in organization design. The site now also features unlimited scrolling, as the home page seems to go on forever. Again, the site also places a huge importance on social media, now embedding images of tweets on the home page.
Website structure is constantly reevaluated. We are in a constant state of technological and digital advancement. However, when looking at these websites, every change was made with the user in mind. Regardless of how the face of the site changes, the content and organization is always there for us. After all, we are the reason for this digital explosion.
