Can you say what in particular makes it look like 90s? And what could be done to make it look more current?
* underlined links in sidebar (we are familiar with sidebars now, we know we can click those, this looks like a page made with <frame>)
* same for top nav bar
* solid non-subtle background colors (more subtle ones or patterns these days are more common these days)
* too many font sizes
* odd intermix of rounded corners (very round!) and square ones
* unstyled textual header (if you just adopt a "visual" font for the title it will look nicer)
I don't mind it, anyway.
please no. my parents had an internet connection since 1996, and they have SO MUCH TROUBLE with links that aren't underlined, especially on the phone. It's one of the most basic affordances of the web.
Basically every site I could think of (NYT, Yahoo!, BBC, Google/GMail, HuPo, Amazon) has navbars without underline.
Even the site for "Don't Make Me Think!"[0] avoids them.
Why does it bother me (and I guess others)? It is because it looks like the links were done fast and cheap, with no style, except the default style.
3-column grail layout (not bad per se, and not badly done at all, just something that was chased in the 90/00s to the extent that it looks dated - still could be ok for the intended target audience)
Why are there two nav menus? The horizontal menu appears to contain the same links as the vertical one, or the first couple items of it
Center body text doesn't have margin/padding
In general, allow content to have space rather than trying to cram everything into the first page impression; there are exceptions, though
What's the central message/tagline for the ATS site? The teaser syntax examples in the right column, with proper typo, are about the stuff that should be featured as central or only content
+1 for crafting a site for your project in the first place
The combination of typography, colour scheme, borders, corners, and margin used doesn't add up to a "unified look and feel".
Anyways, I made the discussion go off tangent here talking about the website and not the language itself :D