Web Design Trends for Gaming Sites: Then and Now -
With each new leap in the development of technology,it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine that only about three decadesago, the Internet did not exist in principle. The appearance of the first online casinosite dates back to 1995, whenMicrogaming launched its first online project. There was nothing on thiswebsite other than text, several banners and links explaining what the onlinecasino is, how it works and how to use it.
Since then, the Internet and online gamblingdevelopment principles have changed a lot, both in terms of functionality anddesign. As architecture reflects the trends and moods of the era, so theevolution of web design symbolized a change of direction, technologicalpatterns and fashion of different time periods. Let us remember together how itwas and take a journey along the long and winding path that the casino sitesand web design have traveled so far.
High-speed Internet connection in those days could befound only in science fiction films. Therefore, users could only rely on achiseling dial-up modem occupying a telephone line, or even sit without theInternet. That is why the casino sites of the early 90s were actually justhypertext pages without any graphics – only information was important, and theappearance did not matter.
The situation began to change closer to the end-90s,when designers began to use HTML tables to organize content and gifs. Sitesstill remained mostly textual, but this text was already divided into columns,rows and other navigational elements. After some time, there was a realexplosion of creativity, characterized by the use of those iconic componentsthat we still remember sites of the 90s: animated text, hit counts, acidcolors, dancing gifs, flashy banners and vulgar pictures – these are just someof the elements of the first online casino sites strongly associated with thoseyears.
In order to get nostalgic for those times and moreclearly understand what is at stake, just look at how Bgaoc website looked in 1999. Even then, this online gambling site offeredhigh-quality games, but users were greeted by flashing buttons, crazy colorsand silly pictures – all in the latest fashion!
Toward the close of the 90s, Flash technology and CSSmarkup language (cascading style sheets) came to the forefront, which radicallychanged the rules of the game. Despite the fact that the Flash technologyitself turned out to be relatively short-lived, it required the user to installspecial software of the latest version, and today it is generally recognized asunsafe, it became the prerequisite for that significant turn in the principlesof site building, which, with some exceptions, are used now.
With the development of understanding that theInternet is the future, the laws of web design are beginning to take ondistinct forms. Web design is separated from web development – now the userexperience of interacting with the site and how the resource looks is no lessimportant than its content and functionality. On online casino sites, a menuappears on the left or top, rounded buttons. Animated signatures are popular onforums, and thanks to CSS, designers decorate Internet resources with gradientfills, shadows, reflection effects and other graphic “decorations”.
In the mid-2000s, the JavaScript programming languagewas widely used as a tool for developing interactive scripts and casino gamesas well. From now on, web development and design are subject to the principle“HTML is content, CSS is how it looks, JavaScript is what it does.”
For the first time, casino sites are seen as a salestool – SEO begins its ascension to the throne of Internet marketing. By theway, it was in the mid-2000s that the first blogs appeared, which, despite aslight decline in popularity in the late 2000s, became one of the main trendsin the second half of the next decade.
Responsive 2010s: adaptability is our everything
We can observe all the latest trends in thedevelopment of casino sites directly in front of our eyes. By the end of the2009, web design had become an integral part of any marketing strategy, andadaptability was at the forefront. From whatever device you look at the site,it should have the same functionality and a single design.
Modern web aesthetics is characterized by theunprecedented popularity of minimalism (down with useless decorative elements),flat design (goodbye, 3D buttons), large background images and high-qualitysliders. Blogs are becoming so commonplace that many sites are almostimpossible to distinguish from each other – they look like a standard WordPressblog, although they are different companies representing different products andservices. Any movement on the Internet is accompanied by icons of socialnetworks in the hope that someone will share with others the news, product orsite in their account.
Unknown 2020s: what does the coming decade have for us?
Without a doubt, the development of technology has adownside. It is impossible not to notice that the Internet as a whole andwebsites in particular from a wonderfully arranged interactive environment haveturned into an extremely monetized commercial territory, where SEO rules the show. To understand this, you do not need to go far. Drivea question into any search engine, the answer to which would take a maximum ofa few sentences, and sometimes words, and see for yourself. Even the elementaryquery “How to screw in a light bulb?” It will give you dozens ofpages filled with huge articles, which, perhaps, will contain the necessaryanswer. However, before you give it a try, you will be introduced to thehistory of the theoretical foundations of electrical engineering, the biographyof Nikola Tesla and other information that is useless in this situation, andall these articles will start equally meaningless: “More and more peopleuse light bulbs in everyday life … “.
Oddly enough, the technology created for the exchangeof useful information begins to lose its original purpose, and it becomes moreand more difficult to separate the grain from the chaff.
However, there are much more reasons for optimism. Thetrends that will characterize web design over the next ten years can be seennow:
- Sites will resemble applications – the number of pages will decrease (the growing popularity of the so-called landing pages and endless scrolling is clear evidence of this).
- Content will become more personalized (many sites already know more about you than you do).
- Video elements will be used more often.
We must not forget about the ubiquitous artificialintelligence – chat bots are already a reality. Despite the fact that whilethey often cause irritation, in the future they may well become quite usefulhelpers like Siri or Cortana.
The trend of recent years, virtual reality, is alsounlikely to bypass the sphere of web design and make the user experience muchmore immersive.
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