- I think design covers so much more than the aesthetic. Design is fundamentally more. Design is usability. It is Information Architecture. It is Accessibility. This is all design.
- - Mark Boulton
1. Speed, speed, speed
In the recent interview with google's own Matt Cutts, he says "A lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast, it should be a good experience; and so it’s sort of fair to say if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. Or maybe if you have a really awfully slow site, users don’t want that as much." And the controversy goes on and on...
In my opinion, a website does not need to be fast but it needs to be responsive. This does not translate to websites with flash components, repetitive loading screen and animation over pages will become annoying.
2. It's all about experience
- Conventions are your friends
- - Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think
Breaking conventions for the sake of breaking the conventions are not innovation. And if you can't innovate, there's nothing wrong with following the current. Walking on familiar grounds makes your user feels safer.
3. Minimize learning curve
If one is presented a page like this, wonder what should one do?
4. KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
- Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
5. Don't rely on graphics
Not all pictures says a thousand words, in fact most stock pictures says nothing at all. Here are the top 3 photo search result of 'web design' from iStockPhoto. Is it saying a thousand words?
What about full flash site? Well aside from SEO problem, flash sites doesn't have a good user experience, users can't jumped directly into a certain page. And doesn't allow them to share links, pictures, or articles with friends. I know that these can be done in flash, but the harsh reality is most flash designers don't (or don't know how to) do it.
6. Graceful downgrade
Since the early days of websites, we have seen a warning text in the footer of sites, 'best viewed in 1024 x 768 screen resolution,' it doesn't mean that screen with resolution 800 x 600 is SOL. These days, in my opinion, it's okay not to support IE6 if your site requires the alpha transparency from PNG pictures, or html5. You should have a fair warning for IE6 users.
Adapted from 6 Things Video Games Can Teach Us About Web Usability