What's interesting to me is that, in spite of the site having been online since 1998, the site has been updated long after that - on the same platform. There are new box sets from 2009 for sale, for instance.
My naive assumption is that the site works well enough, and overhauling it or moving it to another platform (even a common one, that wouldn't require as much individual upkeep) just isn't worth it.
I had a professor in college with a website like this, where it was updated each year with new course material, but still used the same Netscape Composer-generated layout from the late 90s: http://meseec.ce.rit.edu/
The course material was still relevant and being updated - more things are changing than just the year. It works well enough, and I assume he has better things to do than revamp his website.
I have boots that were made to a design which hasn’t changed in 90 years, 50 year old books (but really book design goes back way longer)... lots of things which haven’t changed in decades, some centuries.
Why should the interchange of information have to change in style as often as the clothing of fashion aficionados?
Old styles have the benefit of being done in a time where you just couldn’t do as much so the purpose of exchanging information got more focus.
Fashion is something to be aware of and wary of... looking like it was designed recently is a good way to attract people, but it’s also a good way to attract people only interested in surface appeal instead of substance.
> Why should the interchange of information have to change in style as often as the clothing of fashion aficionados?
Because of Material Design, Rust or because of the management.
Using the brain is hard so they choose the path of least resistance.
> Old styles have the benefit of being done in a time where you just couldn’t do as much so the purpose of exchanging information got more focus.
Yes, but, but, but now we have RAM and disk space and processor power. Why not use it ?
> Fashion is something to be aware of and wary of... looking like it was designed recently is a good way to attract people, but it’s also a good way to attract people only interested in surface appeal instead of substance.
The problem is that _only_ attracts people only interested in surface appeal instead of substance.
OK I’m not a fan of the ad riddled sites these days, but I think we remember a different 90s if you’re saying we were more focused on function than flare back then.
How many evolutions did the state of the art for bookbinding and typesetting go through before we ended up with the modern book?
UX and screen design are relatively new fields. I'm certain we'll eventually reach an equilibrium, based off a few decades of learnings and experience.
So, the world of ham radio is basically full of personal websites that all look like they came directly from 1998, many of which are routinely updated. You’ll have radio amateurs posting really sophisticated antenna and circuit designs on these lovely old webpages. A notable example is eQSL (eqsl.cc), which is one of the central sites for confirming on-air contacts; it definitely has that late-90s flair to it. The outmoded web design is truly one of the underappreciated joys and charms of the hobby.
Homebrew modular synthesizer websites are the same way. Straight out of 1998, but literal gold mines in terms of domain knowledge and circuit diagrams.
You wouldn't access internet over ham. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet exists, but you're not really supposed to send encrypted data over ham networks, so practical use is limited and you wouldn't be accessing those pages.
> the site has been updated long after that - on the same platform. There are new box sets from 2009 for sale, for instance.
Look ma, no CSS!
<font size="4" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF">The Dr. Quinn Mega-Set released October 28, 2008.<br>
The Dr. Quinn Slimline set released October 20, 2009.</font>
My naive assumption is that the site works well enough, and overhauling it or moving it to another platform (even a common one, that wouldn't require as much individual upkeep) just isn't worth it.
I had a professor in college with a website like this, where it was updated each year with new course material, but still used the same Netscape Composer-generated layout from the late 90s: http://meseec.ce.rit.edu/
The course material was still relevant and being updated - more things are changing than just the year. It works well enough, and I assume he has better things to do than revamp his website.