Yahoo: Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle.
Webpage design has evolved as new media has changed and introduced challenges to capturing the viewer’s attention. We live in an age of constant innovation and being able to remember what a page looked like a year ago can be quite difficult. I was curious about how Yahoo.com has changed over time, considering how competition and challenges have been added throughout the years, so I used Internet Achieve Way Back Machine to observe how Yahoo’s homepage has changed throughout the years.
When I first saw what Yahoo’s homepage looked like in October 17, 1996 I was shocked with the level of simplicity in the page. I would have never thought that one of the most popular sites in the United States started as a logo on top of a page, with some icons, and a list of links aligned left to the page. Can someone help me spell boring? I suppose it makes sense for the page to look so simple. At this time, there was not a high public surfing the web and there weren’t nearly as many distractions in the web as we have today.
On April 16, 1997, there was more organization in the content of the homepage. Nothing too fascinating (yet) but they took those hideous left alignments and organized the links in the center so the viewer can see all links without having to scroll down the page. Making all the content available in the page easier to see makes the page more accessible. Well done, Yahoo!
When I saw the homepage flashback from April 19, 2003, I thought, “It’s starting to look like a modern day webpage.” It has everything it had before, but presented in a more organized manner. It is easy to see the hierarchy within the page and what belongs together. Additionally, there are new elements introduced. I noticed the email icon on the top, advertising on the page, online shopping, yahoo instant messenger, and to the right, there are main headings with subheadings of titles of various articles being featured. At this point is easy to see how media is changing. With the new millennium came access more access to the Internet and the dissemination of ideas throughout the globe. This is a prime example of yahoo fighting for the short attention span of a public that is bombarded with lots of information from many different sources. At this point I can hear Yahoo screaming “Hey! Check out this article! Here’s its catchy title!” when you first open the homepage.
The archive from July 31, 2008 shows a different homepage layout. Immediately, I noticed the customization tools at the top where you can sign in and make the page “your Yahoo.” It seems to me that this was a way to make the “Yahoo experience” unique for its viewers and differentiate from other competitors. Once more, there is a better level of organization and hierarchy to the services that Yahoo offers and to the left, a space for an interactive news box; judging from the archive snapshot it is not clear what exactly was posted in that space in 2008, but I assume it constantly flashed a featured article.
Looking at the homepage from April 14, 2012 is more like what we are used to seeing in a webpage today. On the top there’s the logo, the search engine, and the sign in links so you can make Yahoo “Your Yahoo.” Also, now we are presented each category listed on the left with beautiful icons — let’s be honest! A lot of people don’t even read the categories anymore. They look for the envelope when they want to send an email — and a plethora of information taking turns to be presented to us. As a focal point, images are changing to make the viewer curious about various articles. Lastly, Yahoo presents the top ten trending tops so you know exactly what people are interested in at the moment.
It is interesting to me that it seems that Yahoo has found a webpage layout that has been successful to meet its goals as a provider of information. Comparing the layout of April 14, 2012 to the layout of April 14, 2015, there are not many differences on how the information is organized and delivered to the viewers. Other than the change in icons to make them look more high definition and the use of color to accent certain headings, the layouts are practically the same.
It’s fascinating how Yahoo, today being a famous search engine, has changed so much in the past decades. From the simple layouts to the strategic grouping; I cannot help to wonder, what will be next?
