Single-Serving Site vs Web 1.0
シングルサービング・サイト / ウェブ1.0
Single-Serving Site comes from Reading on the Web and Web 1.0 from Digital Retro. One is layout and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Single-Serving Site
A site made of a single page on its own domain that does exactly one thing. Jason Kottke gave the form its name in February 2008, and around four hundred readers wrote in with examples, which is how it settled into a recognised type. There is no navigation and nowhere to go next: the answer fills the screen and that is the whole site.
Web 1.0
Reuses the naivety of the constrained early web as directness and charm. In the 2020s it came back as a movement to take the personal site back, gathering under names like Neocities and Yesterweb.
| Single-Serving Site | Web 1.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 2008– | 1990s |
| Family | Reading on the Web | Digital Retro |
| Kind | Layout | Style |
| Cues | The domain name is the question and the page holds nothing but the one word answer / No heading and no paragraph, just one word or one image occupying the middle of the screen / No menu, no search and no footer links, so there is nowhere the visitor can go next / Titles that can be answered yes or no, in the manner of Is It Christmas? and Is Twitter Down? | Blue links / Low-res GIFs / System fonts / Plain buttons |
| Best used for | Building a page that answers one question, by putting the answer in the middle as a single word and cutting everything else · Publishing a notice or a status readout on its own domain as one page with no header and no footer | Showing affection for internet culture · An unpolished, approachable feel |
| Type | Blow the answer up to the width of the viewport. One typeface, and no other text anywhere on the page. | System sans and monospace |
| Composition | One page, one screenful, nothing below the fold. A single element in the centre and margin everywhere else. | Left-aligned, borders, table-like division |
| Material | A flat background colour. No ornament and no layering; when the answer changes, only the word or the colour swaps. | White background, blue links, dithered images |
| Caution | Keeping it to one page but adding explanatory copy, share buttons and related links breaks the only rule that matters, and what is left is just a short landing page. | Don't regress actual accessibility. Separate the look from interaction quality. |