It's cool to see how different designers have approached the subject of their nav/header redesigns.

Some have moved away from the whole tab/button thing whiles others have gone down that very path.

Cool stuff!

Nice collection. I wonder how many of the changes were prompted by usability studies (likely affordable by such big companies) and how many were just to create a new look.

I think the Adobe site got it backwards. :)

I see that Bank of America used to have "Higher Standards" but no longer do.

I noticed that less design and improvement on the overall readability of new menus, stood out as the most significant changes across the board. Less (design) is more (usable).

Hi

Thanks for the great tutorial as it certain helped me look at things differently.

Nathan

For the most part seem less clunky today and fewer and fewer folks are using the rounded corners.

I'm now kind of curious about which of these navigation bars are/were marked up in tables and which in css - and curious to know how much that difference influenced the design.

Also - as a BofA customer, I'd hardly say that their navigation bar or their web site works. Every month, I have to learn again how to make a payment on my credit card and how to view my statement. I have to assume those are two really common customer tasks that should be straightforward and simple, yet aren't.

Style-wise its almost a regression, usability has certainly improved though

I agree it is funny how most everyone moved away from the tabs and gone with more of a linear navigation. This will definitely make me think more about usability when designing the navigation for my web design clients, since most of these guys has undoubtedly have focus groups to research their changes before they make them.

Awesome, I love those kind of posts! But it would be even more fun, if you had used even older ones, like from 1998 or something like that. But still, great list :)
A great place to look for cached designs is archive.org, not working every time but for popular websites quite accurate. Just check out Amazon.com from October 99: http://web.archive.org/web/19991013091817/http://amazon.com/

That's a great collection! Personally I feel less is more with design. I am surprised though that websites still try to cram so much info/content onto their site without any regard for helping people find relevant information! Consider Godaddy....UGH. It would be interesting to see their old look...

Thanks for the post!
-Don (Elliott Design)

Well your article helped me to be more observant next time I visit any website, as I never bothered to notice such minor details as you did. Anyways its good to see the improvement that these sites have made and their new look is very good.

It's so interesting how so many of the old designs bring about that 'whatever were they thinking' response ... and yet, at the time, they were probably the bee's knees! This move so fast in this business of ours!

For the most part it hasnt changed TOO much.

Thanks for this compilation. It really is amazing how things evolve and leads to the question of what we will be seeing in five years and what we will then think about what we are doing now.

I think the Walmart navigation same as amazon.

Changing times brings evolutions. This is just a part of it... "the new age web usabilities and designs".

I think it's interesting to see how a lot of the new navigations are actually simpler than they used to be. I think simplicity has become quite a key design trend over the last few years, and I, for one, commend this trend!

I hope things keep getting simpler and bad design habits get knocked out the window!

nice collection. thanks.

If you guys notice most of modern menus are much simple but sleek. Currently we are also building css menus instead of old graphic rollover menus.

Nice collection you have here. Thanks

Eddie Cheng
Quape Solutions
Singapore Web Design Company

Great navigation changes, some were on web 2, nice list

I think the new, clean, sleek, simple navigation is nicer and more user friendly. Many sites with the drop down java type menus are frustrating to navigate. If you are trying to keep people on a site, it's best not to frustrate them.

you can see how they all change to a more minimal style

Well, nice compilation there. And just to add on, if anyone wanna check back a website's old design, you can way waybackmachine @ web.archive.org

This is a great bit of info you have put together. Data like this can help us web developers build our sites the best they can be. I would be interested in seeing the actual dates this changes have been made.

The shopping cart navigator is perfect, I like it very much.

Very nice collection! It is interesting to see the differences between "old times" and "present times". As Akbar said, "Changing times brings evolutions".
Keep up the great work!

Ovi Dogar
AbsoluteCovers.com

Great post. I enjoyed seeing the evolution of the top navs.

I, for one, appreciate the use of 'white space' and simple navs but I don't care for the apple site. Don't know why - but that's the only one that I think was not a good move.

I enjoyed the difference between old and new ones

hy nice post.......
great comparison old & new webdesign of all the popular sites....
really wonderful to see the changes....
Thanks..... :)

really, your are doing fantastic job and thanks to sharing this post.

Nice to see so many examples. Designing trends have been changed to more customer centered approach. New navigation bars or more clear and more attactive.