I’ve been designing websites since the early 2000s, which makes me either experienced or old, depending on how generous you’re feeling.
Back then, the web was a chaotic mess of possibility. Flash intros that nobody wanted to watch. Animated GIFs everywhere. Websites that played MIDI files automatically when you loaded them. Sites built entirely in tables because CSS wasn’t really a thing yet. The little “under construction” gif with the animated worker – remember that?
It was terrible. It was glorious. It was completely unregulated chaos.
And now? Well, now everything works better. Pages load faster. Sites actually function on phones. We have proper tools and frameworks and best practices.
But somewhere along the way, we lost something too.
After 20 years of watching this industry evolve – from Melbourne agencies to Dubai advertising to freelancing in Thailand and now designing for small businesses on the Sunshine Coast – I’ve got some thoughts about what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what we should probably think about.
What’s Changed: The Obvious Stuff
Let’s start with the technical evolution, because that’s the easy part.
The tools are unbelievably better. I used to hand-code everything in Notepad. Then Dreamweaver came along and felt like magic. Now we’ve got WordPress, page builders, frameworks, CSS preprocessors, version control, deployment tools – the entire infrastructure of web design has become sophisticated beyond what we could have imagined in 1999.
Mobile changed everything. I remember when designing for mobile meant creating a separate “m.domain.com” site with limited features. Now mobile-first is standard, responsive design is expected, and if your site doesn’t work perfectly on a phone, you’re dead in the water. This isn’t just a technical change – it fundamentally altered how we think about design and content hierarchy.
User expectations shifted completely. Back in the day, people would wait 30 seconds for a page to load over dial-up. They’d tolerate broken layouts and clunky navigation because, well, that was just how the web worked. Now? Your site needs to load fast, work perfectly, and look good doing it. Users have zero patience for anything that doesn’t work immediately. The bar for what counts as “acceptable” has risen astronomically.
Design has standardised. For better and worse. We all know what a website is supposed to look like now. Logo top left (or centre). Hero section with big image and headline. Three column features section. Testimonials. Call to action. Footer with everything. There’s a template for that, and everyone’s using some variation of it.
Content management democratised. You used to need to know code to update a website. Now your grandmother can use WordPress (in theory, anyway). This is mostly good – it gave control back to business owners. But it also meant a lot of websites being built by people who maybe shouldn’t be building websites.
SEO became a thing, then became a nightmare. When I started, SEO meant stuffing keywords into meta tags and hoping for the best. Then Google got smart. Then SEO became this entire industry of specialists and snake oil salesmen. Now it’s this weird balance of technical optimisation, content strategy, and trying not to get penalised for doing what worked last year.
What’s Changed: The Less Obvious Stuff
But the technical evolution is only part of the story. The really interesting changes are cultural and philosophical.
Design went from art to science. In the early days, web design was experimental. You tried things. You broke conventions. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but there was this sense of exploration. Now we’ve got heatmaps, A/B testing, conversion rate optimisation, user experience research. Everything is measured, tested, optimised. Which is good for results, but sometimes I miss the wildness of it.
The barrier to entry collapsed. Used to be you needed real skills to build a website. Now? Squarespace, Wix, Shopify – anyone can have a professional-looking site in an afternoon. This democratised the web, which is genuinely good. But it also flooded the market with mediocrity and made it harder for people to understand the difference between a $500 template site and proper custom work.
Attention spans evaporated. People used to actually read websites. They’d scroll through multiple pages, read your entire about section, explore your portfolio. Now you’ve got about 5 seconds to convince someone not to bounce. Everything’s got to be scannable, skimmable, instantly digestible. Long-form content still works, but only if you hook people immediately.
Trust became harder to establish. In the early 2000s, just having a professional-looking website gave you credibility. Now everyone has a professional-looking website – even the scammers. So trust signals have become more important: reviews, testimonials, social proof, security certificates, privacy policies. The bar for credibility has risen dramatically.
The amateur/professional gap widened, then narrowed, then widened again. Initially, professional designers had a huge advantage because we knew code and had expensive software. Then templates and drag-and-drop builders levelled the playing field. Now the gap’s opening up again, but for different reasons – understanding strategy, user psychology, conversion optimisation, brand development. The technical barriers came down, but the strategic barriers went up.
What Hasn’t Changed: The Fundamentals
Here’s what twenty years has taught me: the technology changes constantly, but the underlying principles don’t.
People still want to connect with people. Doesn’t matter if it’s 1999 or 2025, if your website feels robotic and corporate, people won’t trust it. Personality matters. Authenticity matters. Sounding like an actual human being matters. This was true when websites were built in tables, and it’s true now in the age of AI and automation.
Clear beats clever every single time. I’ve seen thousands of websites over the years. The ones that work aren’t necessarily the most creative or the most cutting-edge. They’re the ones that make it dead simple to understand what you do and how to work with you. However, clear and creative aren’t opposites. The best websites I’ve ever worked on were both. They stood out, they had personality, they took risks with design – but you still knew exactly what the business did within 5 seconds. Fancy animations for the sake of it? Useless. But thoughtful, interesting design that also communicates clearly? That’s the sweet spot. Don’t confuse “different” with “confusing.” You can break the mould without breaking people’s brains.
Content is still king. This hasn’t changed. A beautiful design with terrible copy doesn’t work. Never has, never will. You need to actually say something worth reading. You need to give people a reason to care. Design can make good content better, but it can’t save bad content.
Loading speed matters. It mattered in the dial-up era, it matters now. The acceptable threshold has changed, but the principle hasn’t: make people wait and they’ll leave.
First impressions are instant. You’ve always had about 5 seconds to make an impression. The difference now is that the bar for what constitutes a “good” first impression has risen. But the timeline hasn’t changed – you either hook people immediately or you lose them.
What We Lost Along the Way
Not everything about the evolution of web design has been positive. We gained a lot, but we lost some things too.
We lost experimentation. The web used to feel like this frontier where anything was possible. Now it feels like we’re all following the same playbook. Everyone’s got the same hero section, the same three-column layout, the same testimonial slider. It works, sure, but it’s boring as hell.
We lost patience. Both designers and users. Everything has to be instant now. We don’t give ideas time to breathe, we don’t give users time to explore. It’s all about immediate conversion, quick wins, fast results.
We lost some of the craft. When you had to hand-code everything, you understood how it worked. Now you can drag and drop your way to a decent-looking site without understanding any of the underlying mechanics. That accessibility is good, but something’s been lost in terms of craftsmanship and deep understanding.
We lost some personality. Ironically, as the tools got better and more accessible, websites got more generic. Templates and best practices led to conformity. Everyone started sounding the same, looking the same. The early web was full of weird, personality-driven sites. Now everything’s optimised into sameness.
What We Gained
But let’s not be too nostalgic. We gained plenty too.
Accessibility improved dramatically. Modern web standards mean websites can actually work for people with disabilities. Screen readers, keyboard navigation, proper colour contrast – this stuff matters and it’s infinitely better than it used to be.
Professionalism. The web isn’t the wild west anymore. Businesses can trust that their website will work, will be secure, will do what it’s supposed to do. That reliability opened up massive opportunities. I do, however, still like the Old West way of doing things. This website might be an example 🙂
Speed and performance. Despite sites doing way more than they used to, they load faster and work better. The infrastructure improvements have been huge.
Tools and efficiency. I can build a custom WordPress site in a fraction of the time it used to take to hand-code something far less functional. That efficiency means better value for clients and more creative time for designers.
Understanding of what works. Twenty years of data and testing means we actually know what converts, what engages people, what builds trust. We’re not just guessing anymore.
Working for Big Brands vs Small Businesses
Here’s something interesting: I’ve worked on websites for IBM, Volvo, the Indian Premier League – massive international brands with huge budgets and multiple layers of approval. And now I design sites for local cafes, tradies, small consultancies on the Sunshine Coast.
You know what the fundamental challenges are? The same.
Big brands struggle with the same things small businesses do: how to stand out, how to connect with their audience, how to balance being professional with being personable. The scale is different, the budgets are different, but the core problems haven’t changed.
The difference is that small businesses have way more freedom to be interesting. No committees, no brand guidelines written by a corporate team ten years ago, no legal department vetting every word. Small business websites can have actual personality if the owner lets them.
That freedom is why I prefer this work now. The craft is the same, but the possibilities are wider.
What’s Next?
Twenty years in, I’m supposed to have some grand prediction about where web design is heading, right?
Honestly, I think we’re due for a rebellion. The web has become too standardised, too safe, too predictable. At some point, people are going to get tired of every website looking the same. We’ll see a swing back toward experimentation and personality – not in a “Flash intro” way, but in a more sophisticated, intentional way.
AI is obviously going to change things. It’s already changing things. But I don’t think it’s going to replace designers, I think it’s going to separate the craftspeople from the button-pushers. Anyone can generate a decent-looking site with AI now. But understanding strategy, brand, user psychology, how to make design decisions that actually serve business goals – that’s still human work.
Mobile will keep dominating, but I think we’ll see more focus on different screen sizes and contexts. Not just phone vs desktop, but watches, car displays, smart home interfaces. The principles stay the same, but the canvas keeps expanding.
And hopefully, hopefully, we’ll see a return to websites that actually have something to say. The generic corporate speak has got to die eventually. Right?
What I’d Tell My Younger Self
If I could go back to 1999 and talk to the version of me who was just starting out, hand-coding sites in Notepad and thinking Flash was the future, here’s what I’d say:
Don’t bother with Flash! Just kidding. Learn the fundamentals properly. The technology will change a million times, but understanding layout, hierarchy, colour theory, typography, user psychology – that stuff’s forever.
Don’t get too attached to any specific tool or platform. What’s hot today will be obsolete tomorrow. Stay flexible, keep learning.
The human side matters more than the technical side. Learn to listen to clients. Learn to understand what they actually need versus what they think they want. Learn to communicate why design decisions matter.
Personality is your competitive advantage. Don’t try to sound like everyone else. Don’t try to be the “professional” version of yourself. Just be yourself, but clearer.
The Bottom Line
Twenty years in this industry has taught me that everything changes and nothing changes.
The tools get better, the technology evolves, the best practices shift. But the fundamentals remain: connect with people, make things clear, build trust, solve actual problems, and for god’s sake, have something worth saying.
The websites that worked in 1999 worked for the same reasons websites work in 2025: they made people feel something, they communicated clearly, and they made it easy to take the next step.
Everything else is just implementation details.
After twenty years, I’m still here because the fundamental challenge never gets old: how do you take a business, a brand, an idea, and translate it into something that works on a screen? How do you make people care?
The technology will keep changing. The platforms will evolve. But that challenge? That’s forever.
Been in business long enough to remember your first terrible website? Or maybe you’re stuck with one right now that still looks like it’s from 1999? Get in touch. After twenty years of doing this, I’ve probably seen worse.