10 Year Challenge — How Popular Websites Have Changed In China.

An exciting look at the difference a decade can make for websites in China.

Brought to you from here in Shanghai. Images provided by my Chinese internet connection and Arun Venkatesan

Google 2009 vs Google 2019

As you can see Google has opted for a much more simplistic design. One that brings back nostalgia, to the days of dial-up modems and turbo buttons on PCs. Renowned for their strong use of white spacing, Google has maintained its style even a decade on.

A much simpler two-tone colour scheme. Bold and memorable.

Twitter 2009 vs Twitter 2019

The horrid soft turquoise tones are gone. Replaced with a brighter and whiter landing page. Only two call to actions to navigate which makes their signup form tighter. Few sites can brag of such an effective funnel in place.

The new Twitter produces less outrage than the older one.

YouTube 2009 vs YouTube 2019

All the clutter, the text, and the videos…gone. With no more distracting clutter YouTube has finally solved its issues with browsing and recommendations. It may go some way towards solving their issues with sociopaths.

Just like the animators and smaller content creators. Gone.

Facebook 2009 vs Facebook 2019

The Facebook layout has changed only slightly over the decade. Until this recent development, that is. Less blue, less social, and fewer actions to take. A trend it appears among social network platforms. Privacy has always been a concern with Facebook, but this may go a long way towards solving that problem.

Those still using Facebook in 2019 will find the new layout tricky to understand.

Reddit 2009 vs Reddit 2019

Reddit’s iconic layout placed functionality over design. Redditors fought off the horrendous new design…which appeared to be some kind of mutant hybrid of every horrible social network layout to have ever existed. Yet they couldn’t fight off this unsurprising change.

Reddit have disregarded all feedback on their design, as always, and instead decided on this.

So this concludes our wrap up of the 10-year challenge for sites in China. I hope this was informative and useful.

For a genuine look on how popular websites in the West have changed in the past 10 years. Check out this blog post.

I’m @SobeyHarker on Twitter. If you Tweet this article don’t forget to mention me so I can thank you.

Additionally, thank you @China_wire for taking my content for your WeChat account. Innovation at its finest. A credit or source would be appreciated next time.

As you can see they didn’t include the “after” screenshots so the joke falls flat. Sloppy work, lads.

ChinaWire showcasing that they don’t understand humour.