web design

My principles of web design in 500 words or less:

• The web is a new medium – avoid shovelware. What works in print does not always work on the Web.
• Be fast: Most users will make up their minds about your page based on what they see in the first ten seconds.
• Put out new content regularly and often – every day, week or month. Keep your deadlines!
• Lead with new content.
• Write the page first. The writing should stand on its own. Then add links, pictures and so on to make it better. Writing is the heart of your content, like it or not. It is what the spiders see. It is what can go anywhere. It is the most usable part of your content for other sites. It will last the longest.
• Users read bits here and there and then follow a link.
• Writing style.
  • A good web page has five levels of content:
    1. Title
    2. First sentence
    3. First paragraph
    4. Highlighted words
    5. The entire page

    Each level goes a little deeper into your content and each level stands on its own. This allows your readers to go as deeply into your content as they wish. They will get a lot more out of a page structured this way. It lets them X-ray your page, which is just what they need.

  • Have between 200 and 500 words a page (the same length as in a book).
  • Provide greater depth with links, not page length.
  • Use short, plain words.
  • Use short sentences of about ten words, no more than twenty.
  • Use short paragraphs of no more than four sentences. It should express only one idea. The opening words should make it obvious what it is about.
  • Use lists.
  • Readers prefer facts over opinion.
  • Write the way you would talk to a friend.
• A web page should:
  • Be less than 15 K: words, pictures, HTML, everything.
  • Be designed with a fat marker. The fine details are lost on most users in those first ten seconds that matter.
  • Be easy to read and to resize, including the size of the letters.
  • Be able to stand alone: Because of links and search engines, any page can be the first and only page users ever see.
  • Have the more important things towards the top.
• Learn HTML 3.2 and use it. It is old, but it is the one all the spiders know.
• Avoid Flash, Java, Javascript, plug-ins and other such temptations. Yes.
• Links:
  • Should be obvious and say where they go.
  • Should open in the same window.
  • Should be used sparingly in the body of your writing.
  • Users in any case prefer pictures over words as links.
  • Two links or more in from your other pages,
  • Two links or more out to good, related content.
  • Most links are dead in five years.
  • Try to keep to fewer than seven links.
• Use a stylesheet to separate content from style.
• Check page for
  • links
  • spelling
  • top browsers
  • printing
• Read your server logs. They will blow your mind.

– Abagond, 2006.

See also:

• external links
  • Jeffrey Veen
  • Jakob Nielsen
  • “Web Writing for Many Interest Levels”
  • HTML 3.2
    
  • Donald Norman
• The Web
• The F-pattern – what users look at in those first ten seconds
• shovelware
• search engine optimization
• Ten things WordPress has taught me about blogging