This month marks the 20th year in business for J.T.S. Design, Inc. We were founded in the first week of January 2003 as JTS Design and incorporated the following year as J.T.S. Design, Inc.
Over the course of these past 20 years, we have seen a great deal of change to the landscape of the Internet. Technology has advanced at an incredible rate while popular tools of the past, such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, have disappeared.
Here are just some of those changes that we’ve reflected on.
Remember Flash?
When our company was founded, Macromedia Flash, which later became Adobe Flash, was one of the hottest technologies for the web. Hated by some and loved by others, Flash was used, among other things, to create stunningly interactive websites and rich web applications.
Today, however, Flash effectively no longer exists except within China and some specialized enterprise platforms. At this point, all major browsers block Flash content by default due to security precautions.
Table Layouts & The Infamous Spacer.gif
A popular form of website design in the early 2000s were table-based layouts and transparent spacer GIF images. Back then, using HTML tables and transparent spacer images was the method for creating fancily designed websites as well as laying content out in columns. However, this method causes websites to load slower due to code bloat and today is considered bad for SEO. Instead, we have CSS and Div-based layouts that allow us to create well designed, fast loading, semantic websites which leads us to the next topic…
Mobile Design
Yet another major change to the web in these past 20 years are the existence of mobile devices. Back in the 2000s, we didn’t have Apple or Android devices that would let us surf the web over wi-fi connections. In those days, it was flip phones and Blackberrys!
Over time, as mobile devices became more popular, designers and developers began creating mobile versions of websites. These were copies of desktop websites meant solely for mobile devices. If a user was on a device with a specific viewport size, they would be redirected to the mobile website.
As technology advanced, new tools were needed. Today, we have responsive design. Responsive design, which is a combination of semantic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript libraries, allows a website to respond to the viewport of any device and scale to the necessary size which negates the need for having 2 separate websites.
Accessibility
Did you know that your website should be handicap accessible? Even today, most business owners aren’t aware of this fact. What has changed, however, is that in the early 2000s, while it was considered good practice, it wasn’t a major topic nor was it something that was actively enforced in great measure.
Over recent years, that has changed as the law evolves and law firms take advantage of the lack of awareness on this topic. In fact, several years ago, wineries throughout the Hudson Valley were hit with lawsuits for websites that failed basic accessibility tests.
Today, it’s incredibly important to have an accessible website. In fact, some of the requirements for accessibility also directly impact search engine optimization and usability for all users.
In Conclusion
A lot has changed on the technological front over these past 20 years when it comes to the Web. It’s been fascinating to watch and be a part of those changes.
But, the one thing that hasn’t changed for J.T.S. Design, Inc. is creating quality websites and web applications for our clients at reasonable prices. We have some of the greatest clients, some of whom have been with us since our founding (a testament in and of itself!), and we are dedicated to continuously meeting their needs and deadlines. We look forward to providing our services for many years to come.
So, thank you for your continued support over these past 20 years!