Yahoo is the only website just launched and most websites like google, amazon and ebay yet to launched in the year 1994

But, says usability guru Dr Jakob Nielsen, some things have stayed stable in that decade, that is the values of what makes a site simple to use.

Dr Nielsen has looked behind at a decade of work on usability and measured whether the 34 core guidelines tired up back then are appropriate to the web of today.

"Approximately 80% of the gear we found 10 years ago are still an matter today," he said.

"Some has left away because users have changed and 10% have changed because technology has changed."

Sites for sore eyes
Few design crimes, such as splash screens that get among a user and the site they are annoying to visit, and web designers adding their artistic urges have almost moved out, said Dr Nielsen.

"But there's great permanence on usability concerns," he told the BBC News website.

Dr Nielsen said the essential principles of usability, centering on easiness of use and clear thoughts about a site's entire design, were as vital as ever.

"It's essential to be awake of these gears as issues because they stay as such," he said.

They are still vital because the net has not tainted as much as people thinking it would.

"More people thought that design and usability was only a passing problem because broadband was taking off," he said. "But there are a very small number of bags where usability issues go away because you have broadband."

Design decision
Dr Nielsen said the victory of sites such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo showed that shut attention to design and user needs was important.

"Those four sites are tremendously profitable and very successful," said Dr Nielsen, adding that they have mostly defined marketable success on the net.

"All are based on usability and make it simple for people to do stuff on the internet," he said.

"They are building simple but dominant tools available to the user.

In the up coming days, Dr Nielsen believes that search engines will play an even larger part in helping people finding their needs with the largr amount of information online.

"They are playing like the operating system to the internet," he said.

But, he said, the truth that they are helpful now does not mean that they could not do better.

Right away, he said, search oriented sites did not do a very good quality job of relating the information that they return in reply to queries. Often people had to look at a website just to judge whether it was useful or not.

Tools that watch the actions of people on websites to see what they actually get helpful could also help filter results.

Research by Dr Nielsen shows that people are becoming more fashionable in their use of search engines.

The most recent data on how many words people use on search engines shows that, on common, they use 2.2 terms. In 1994 only 1.3 words were used. "I think it's wonderful that we have seen a doubling in a 10-year period of those search terms," said Dr Nielsen.