References to classic web design principles referenced in the article. All four topics converged in late 1990s/early 2000s as web standards matured, driven by library science principles, accessibility advocacy, and recognition that the web needed structure to remain usable.
Heading hierarchy – Content organization and scanability
Karen Schriver’s document design research established headings as hierarchical content markers rather than just visual elements, emphasizing their role in helping readers navigate and understand document structure
- “Document Design from 1980 to 1990: Challenges that Remain” (1989) – Technical Report documenting the evolution of document design theory
- Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers (1997) – The foundational book, with 800-item bibliography establishing research-based principles for content structure and scanability
Semantic structure – Separating content from presentation
In 1999, the HTML 4.01 specification encouraged the separation of content from presentation. Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) support in browsers made this technically easier for web pages to support.
- WebAIM Semantic Structure guide
- Semantic HTML Wikipedia overview
- HTML 4.01 specification (1999) – First major push toward “separation of structure and presentation“
- W3C Technical Architecture Group “Separation of semantic and presentational markup, to the extent possible, is architecturally sound” (2001)
- W3C Semantic markup guidance
Clear metadata – Findability and classification
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative was developed to create a standardized metadata vocabulary to describe online topics, or more generically, web-based resources. This was in response to early web’s findability crisis – even with only 500,000 web objects, users struggled to find resources.
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
- First Dublin Core workshop (March 1995) – OCLC and NCSA meeting in Dublin, Ohio
- RFC 2413 “Dublin Core Metadata for Resource Discovery” (September 1998) – First standardization
- Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1
- DCMI Metadata Basics
- Using Dublin Core guide (Early version. Superseded by https://www.dublincore.org/resources/userguide/)
Accessible markup – Universal design principles
Universal Design
Universal design is the design of buildings, products, or environments to make them accessible to all people, regardless of age, disability, or other factors (Wikipedia)
- Ronald Mace coined “universal design” term (1970s-1980s) in overview of Universal Design
- “Principles of Universal Design” – Center for Universal Design at NC State University (1990s)
Web accessibility formalization
- Gregg Vanderheiden’s first web accessibility guideline (January 1995)
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) launched (1997)
- WCAG 1.0 published (May 1999) – First standardized web accessibility framework
- WCAG 2.0 (December 2008) – Introduced POUR principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust)
- WCAG history and overview
- Current WCAG guidance
Related foundational work:
- Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (1998) – The “Polar Bear Book” establishing information architecture as a discipline
- Peter Morville’s history: https://intertwingled.org/the-polar-bear-book/
- Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Morville