Call for Support: Timeline for the History of Web Design

This project wants to map your first encounters with the World Wide Web. It is part of a larger project entitled "A Decade of Webdesign" that culminates in an international conference in Amsterdam, January 21-22, 2005.

As a core part of the project, beginning before and continuing after the conference, the organisers have initiated what they call an 'open research' website/database into the first decade of web design. The online forum takes the form of a visual and textual timeline generated out of a self-customizable questionnaire.

Using a custom content management system the site allows for:
- Users to add images, comments and links to make a collective history of the web as it developed. Such elements might include histories of their own first homepage; the first use of a technology; original html code; reminiscences of key designers, innovators, critics and technologists.
- Using a question based interface users can write their own questions and respond to those of others. All questions entered will then be available, ensuring that no one set of views or way of writing predominates.
- Multi-lingual use.
The site is designed for use both by the general public and as a simple structured tool which can be used for both research and teaching. This project is intended to be of interest to a broad range of disciplines from design to computer science and from history to sociology.

Sessions at the main conference in January will include:
-Histories of Web Design: What do social, technical and cultural historians propose as ways to make an account of the last decade?
-Meaning Structures: As automated site-design becomes increasingly important the history of the interweaving of technology and culture up to the point of semantic engineering is mapped out.
-Modelling the User: Creativity and usability have often been set up as the two key poles of web design. This panel asks instead for a more sophisticated narrative about the change in understanding of user needs and desires over the last ten years.

Associated Link: The Timeline

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