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Darwinism...
The hairy Mammoth, the Dodo, Tyrannasaurus Rex... Boo,
Stepstone,
and E-Toys.
There's a great argument to suggest that usability is the Darwinism
of the online world. Great academic debates rage in the various
seats of learning, the Dinosaurs refuse to evolve and die out in
a sudden implosion and those who change over time survive to become
stronger.
Just as we can visit a museum and look at a graphic depiction of
the ascent of man from beast, we can now compare the former incarnations
of the most successful and most obvious failures in the dot com
industry.
An online library of past sites has been established at Archive.org
this site features an online time machine called "the wayback
machine" all you do is type in a url and you can chose a date
from which to look at a site.
A brief glance at the BBC site shows it evolving from a dark information
page with just 2 links in December 1996 to the comprehensive portal
it has now become.
In comparison Amazon simply added to its services, it's basic design
didn't change very much at all. Why? well Amazon took usability
and simple design into account from day one.
There is no doubt in my mind that had the BBC not persevered with
their site to improve its basic features and given it the backing
of one of the world's biggest media organisations it would have
gone the way of the Dodo... or the Boo.
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