Web Evolution: luc.edu
Media is constantly evolving. As time goes on, new strides in website design, accessibility, and demand of users is constantly expanding. The website internet archive allows you to step back in time and experience a website’s evolution through the years. As Deuze, Blank, and Spears mention in their article, A Life Lived in Media, “the whole world and our lived experience in it can and perhaps should be seen as framed by, mitigated through, and and immediate by pervasive and ubiquitous media”.
To analyze the history of web design, I chose a site that I visit daily: www.luc.edu, or Loyola University Chicago’s home website. Shockingly, there was data ranging from 1996 until present day. Through screenshots of the University’s home page, I was able to gain insight not only to the strides that Loyola has made, but the evolution of new media from the past 10 years.
The first available website from www.luc.edu is December 19, 1996. This site consists of 8 hyperlinks to different information for the University. There also featured color, a graphic, and two images. Although simple, this first website surpassed my expectations for a 1996 website. As I began to explore the hyperlinks, I found that 1996 LUC homepage was extremely simplistic. Lacking interaction, the site was filled with information. I discovered that in 1996, you could not apply online, but had to submit in paper your information with $25.
The next phase of loyola homepage began on February 29th, 2000. Instead of simple hyperlinks, you are now able to click on select tabs to receive more information. This makes sense because in 1999 CSS3 was introduced, providing new functions and features for web design. Also, at this point, you were able to apply to the University electronically.
August 12th, 2004. The small layout still remains, but different color combinations are introduced. In the bottom right corner, a slideshow of pictures is shown, making the site that much more engaging. This may be result of the 1998 introduction of PHP 3, a way to make your webpages dynamic.
By 2003, there are 782 million internet users and 38 million websites online. The screenshot of July 31st, 2005 was the most surprising. A new aseptic is introduced, one lacking pictures and filled with text. Although it is more interactive through hyperlinks, the site lacks complex CSS image design. This was my least favorite phase of the Loyola website history because of the lack of coding complexity.
By July 29, 2007, Loyola introduced an interactive moving curser. As your mouse moved over the banner, different images would appear.
April 28th, 2009 features a video on the home screen banner. There also was a hyper link to a “live commencement stream”. This aligns with the “web 2.0” movement in history. User based content was everywhere, and websites were evolving to invite this social media participation.
By June 30th, 2014, Loyola introduced a new lay out. To my surprise, this looks almost identical to the 2017 homepage. The images featured even appear to be similar. I was shocked that Loyola has not altered there website design in the past 3 to 4 years. However, the more I explored, the more features I noticed have been introduced. Loyola’s site became less of a place for basic information to a place of interaction.
“In the short space of a current college student’s lifetime, the internet has gone from a specialized, futuristic system to the network that most significantly structures how we engage daily with the world at large.” -Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey Pingree, What’s New About New Media?
