Must Design

Top 10 Minus 2
This is an excellent post, but I removed two of the top 10 tips. I removed #4 Type because it isn't clear. Unique type in an image is fine since you know how it will render. Unique type in body text can be a disaster because you don't know how it will render.

The Internet is a billion computers all with different setups for type. When you render an exotic type in HTML text the receiving computer must have that same exotic type or it renders as a more common type (Arial, Veranda).

Let's call this "type roulette" and it is to be avoided. Exotic type in .JPGs or .PNGs or .GIFs (best format for type only images) render exactly as you see them. Type in body text is dependent on the receiving device so I tend to use non-serif universal type (easier to read non-serif type online).

There are ways to select how your type will render when it isn't available on the receiving computer, but I don't like the variability of playing font roulette. Type plays an important but floating point role in website design. I pick a type that will WORK, look pretty much the same on all receiving computers and be easy to read. Don't play font roulette.

I also removed #6 - Drop In Full Screen Photos
Yes this idea can be done well, but your designer better be VERY good. I prefer lots of white space on a website design. White space creates spacing and so highlights design elements NEXT to it. Strange to think of creating highlights by using negative space, but if you think of every great picture or painting you love there is always the use of negative space.

Warhol was famous for using BLACK to create his negative space. Great photographers such as Annie Leibovitz frame negative space in like huge arrows getting your eyes to go where they want them.

You may be the one in 100 designer who can use full screen photos and still create design tension and navigational hierarchy, but odds are better to say USE WHITE SPACE than full screen photos.

I like this article's approach. Alice Rawsthorn makes understanding what good website design is easy. Good web design makes finding information easy. Love this idea, 

"...the most important purpose of most Web sites is to enable us to access information, helping us to find it effortlessly is essential."

As website designers if we were to put that sentence on a wall and check every new design element against it we would be better off. We don't check ideas against the real reason we created the website in the first place, Rawsthorn speculates, because:

* Technologyitis - love new tech without understanding it.

* Lack of imagination or too much imagination.

* Designers easily get lost in a "Curse of Knowledge".

This last bullet is true to my 7 years as a Director of Ecommerce. We looked at our website for hours every day. Our ability to "see" it was zero. What we thought was "easy" could be hard. What we thought was "hard" could be easy. We had, as the Heath brothers describe in their excellent book Made To Stick, the curse of knowledge.  

My team created an important rule. We called it the "Because Rule". Our because rule stated that BECAUSE you CAN do something doesn't mean it is the RIGHT thing to do. RIGHT = helping people find our content and intent (what we wanted them to do) faster, with less effort and with more fun. 

Here's the rub of our Because rule. Every website communicates in overt (click this next) and covert (we are easy to work because you can find what you want) ways. Our "Because Rule" like this article from Alice helped check the inevitable mission creep every Internet marketing team experiences. 

What is your "Because Rule"? How do you craft great website design?