I love how well the absolute majority of these sites render on a phone. What did front end modernize? Wasted resources?
Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
261–270 of 374 posts
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a lot of modern web design suffers from the same AB testing failures that got Pepsi into trouble back in the coke/pepsi days of the 80's. I may be misremembering the details, but the gist was that Pepsi was a bit sweeter, and so in the tiny amounts that people tasted during taste tests, they usually prefer the sweeter drink. In normal use, however, that flavor of Pepsi was too sweet, and sales tanked. I see t…
> But then you start trying to get actual work done, and the Fisher Priced interface is too simplified. That's exactly my thinking as well. To give another example: This week I tried to use an iPad and an Apple Pencil for day-to-day note taking. If you handwrite 100% plain English prose like, The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, it instantly converts it to text and corrects any typos. For simple stuff, it see…
The most notorious example I remember was an update to data entry software in the medical field. The old one ran on some Unix iirc, had a text mode interface, and was entirely controlled by keyboard. Staff could use it in their sleep, enter text, tab, enter more text, tab tab, and so on.
The new version ran on Windows, had a lot more features for sure, but suddenly staff was entering data into a field, grabbed the mouse to move to the next field, entered data, and so on. The process became way slower. So I asked why they don't just ignore the mouse and keep using tab. They were surprised this even works, because it was never mentioned by the folks who trained them on the new software. It was all about how modern and slick it looks and how it has so many more features.
So then staff tried to use the tab key again, but got frustrated very quickly since the software was smart enough so enable and disable controls in the entry form depending on selections you made in earlier fields. So tabbing through the form would require different number of key presses all the time, making it hard to build muscle memory. I think they raised their complaints to management but whether that feedback ever reached the software vendor I have no idea. I guess they did get faster again over time because any new system takes time to get used to, but I'd be very surprised if it ever matched the ancient, simple system again.
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#263As a kid, I found windows to be extremely intuitive - no matter what I was doing, if I thought something was possible, the feature would always be exactly where I’d expect to be. And by windows I mean windows and the desktop applications of the time. They worked well and adhered to the same ui principles, vs every saas tool now that does its own thing. Even the fabled UX of macs never compared to me, I always thought…
> As a kid, I found windows to be extremely intuitive - no matter what I was doing, if I thought something was possible, the feature would always be exactly where I’d expect to be.
This. People had computer problems and asked me for help. I didn't know the answer. But I knew how to quickly find the most likely place where I could diagnose/fix things. And most of the time I was right.
> And by windows I mean windows and the desktop applications of the time. They worked well and adhered to the same ui principles, vs every saas tool now that does its own thing.
And even when these saas tools try to emulate the Windows experience, they fail miserably. What you get is a cursed hodgepodge of double-clicking on links and key bindings that don't work.
The web has a simple but powerful UI. But casual users have trouble learning it, because a significant fraction of websites don't follow that UI. And then there is also the madness of advertisements on the web which makes everything even more confusing.
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But then you start trying to get actual work done, and the Fisher Priced interface is too simplified. That's exactly my thinking as well. To give another example: This week I tried to use an iPad and an Apple Pencil for day-to-day note taking. If you handwrite 100% plain English prose like, The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, it instantly converts it to text and corrects any typos. For simple stuff, it see…
This explains a tendency I've long had which I always assumed was just a look and feel thing. So back in 2021 I got myself a (relatively new) Blackberry. I loved it. Hardware buttons. Lots of them. I've had to upgrade to a newer Android for work reasons, and it has so many default settings I've had to turn off because they are infuriating. Pixel 7. Gestures. No standard bottom bar with the three buttons. Power button…
> No standard bottom bar with the three buttons.
This was very jarring at first, but over time I've actually gotten used to the gestures and they feel more consistent than various makers of phones having the software buttons in different positions. It's almost like muscle memory at this point.
If you don't like gestures, however, you should be able to go to the system settings and enable the old style navigation. If they had removed it entirely, then I'd probably be more critical (a la Windows 11 vertical taskbar).
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#265I actually love this, and I bookmarked it. Why? Not just because of nostalgia. Web 1.0 sites had a different set of UI idioms, which seem unintuitive to us, as we're too set in our new ways now. If you get past the fact they're ugly by modern standards, you'll see these sites accomplishing amazing results through startlingly simple means. It's an excellent source of inspiration, and if you combine those ideas with mo…
They don't seem unintuitive to me, maybe because I grew up with 1.0. these youngsters are creating buttons without outlines, links that are grey and not underlined, checkboxes that slide and sometimes have no other indication that they're on or off, and many other unholy idioms. Web 1.0 was glorious.
To clarify, by unintuitive I mean we don't think of doing things in a simple way today as we're used to more complicated interaction patterns and layouts.
When we open a Web 1.0 it's intuitive to see and browse. In fact, often more intuitive than modern Web. It reminds us... that it's "OK" to keep it simple. And this is a reminder we need frequently in a world of excess.
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#266I've never encountered a site with so much construction underway, may become something big one day: http://textfiles.com/underconstruction/
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#267I've never encountered a site with so much construction underway, may become something big one day: http://textfiles.com/underconstruction/
LOL
good one :)
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#268Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#269Here's something to strive for: The "Aloha Award": https://www.lavasurfer.com/awardpages/award-aloha-guidelines... Oh, wait, dammit: You cannot apply directly for our Aloha Award. It is only granted to the top websites which win our Pau Hana Award. (Only about 5% of Pau Hana Award-winning sites go on to win the coveted "Aloha Award"). Pretty rigorous for a website that specializes in the history of breakfast food spo…
Just missed the Pau Hana deadline by 24 years :-/
Re: Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
#270There's something indescribably magical about visiting a site that's only been visited by ~8k people max and hasn't been updated since 1998. Like landing on a secret world. http://warriorguyver.com/gfa/oldsite2/INDEX1.HTML
The link you share mentions web rings. Those were one of the early ways to discover sites! Forgot about those.
I was thinking that they may be due for a comeback