10 Web Design Principles From The 90's That Still Hold True Today

The 90s introduced us to the internet, and changed the way businesses operate universally. While websites from back in the day look drastically different from today, those old-school sites developed the core fundamentals for what we use today. Here are 10 design principles that are still just as important today, as they were in the 90s:

1. Multiple CTA's

Bold buttons that urge customers to take an action are needed to make sales, and there should never be more than one main call to action on a page. "While 'call to actions' may be different in 2015 than they were in 1995, their importance for any online business remains unchanged," says longtime designer Gabe Shaoolian of Blue Fountain Media.

2. Page Layout Should Be Tailored to How a User Interacts With It

Regardless of the decade, our eyes read print and web the same way – from left to right and top to bottom. While design overall has changed since the 90s, the layout is the same as it reflects the path the user takes when they read through the site.

3. Appropriate font choice

Font choice helps create a personality for your brand. It conveys a message to users before they even read a word on your page. Simply put, font can make or break your website. Standard font styles have changed since the 90s, but adhering to best practices when it comes to conveying emotion and brand identity through font choice is as important as ever.

4. Black text on white background

Many of the successful websites from the 90's used black text with a white background, and some of the more successful sites today still do too. Using patterned or dark backgrounds is distracting for readers and appears unprofessional.

5. Format text for readability

Text that is too small or too close together was hard to read in the 90s and that hasn’t changed. Websites can provide value, but only if that value is legible.

6. Concise messaging

Visitors to a website weren’t particularly keen on reading your website as if it was a book in the 90's, and they still aren’t today. You need succinct messaging that will prove exactly why your brand is there.

7. Simple Design themes

Jarring designs with marquee text and auto-play music were trendy for a while in the 90's. However, these trends have come and gone, and keeping things simple when it comes to design themes will always be the route to the long-term success of your website.

8. Emotion of color

Different colors are associated with different emotions. Hot pink and yellows that blind users didn’t close as many sales in the 90s and still won’t today. Similar to font choice, this can express a message about your brand without words and can be the difference between making a sale and frustrating customers into never coming back.

9. Main message should be above the fold

While we didn’t have as much data to prove it in the 90's, it was thought that content below the fold didn’t get read as much (This is perhaps because we knew our own behavior with newspapers). We now know that having key messaging at the top of your page makes it far more likely to get absorbed and clicked on because people don’t have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find it.

10. Load time

While the joys of 56k connections meant that load times were astronomically higher in the 90's, relative load time was still important. In the 90's, having a page that loaded in 10-20 seconds was impressive and helped to keep people on site. In today’s day and age speed remains important – but the expected load time is now less than 3 seconds.