The evolution of web-based applications followed a different path. Historically, this medium has been used for presenting large amounts of textual information and academic documents. This was usually formatted as hyperlinked content and often included a list of popular links in a navigation area that would help people to find important content. While it was common for each site to have a very individual look (distinct colors and typesetting have had their trends along the way), this grouping of content was largely consistent across the internet. It was a big shift from the desktop software at that time, but once a user had learned the way to interact with one website, they could relatively easily find their way around most of them.

In terms of applications that were delivered through a website, this had a large benefit: the standardized layout or visual hierarchy meant that a new, distinct design would still be usable by most internet-savvy computer users. This was in addition to the fact that they would look the same on any operating system or web browser. This consistency for the user made it easier for designers to apply rich visuals or branding to a web application without reducing the user experience. As the evolving Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) open standard gained popularity, it became easier to share subsets of these designs and to separate the layout details from the visual styling and brand. As a result, there emerged common code for structuring websites and applications, similar to the desktop toolkits that developers were familiar with. But combined with consistency across any internet-connected computer, this standard approach started to make desktop applications seem confusing to learn in comparison: