The 10 Commandments of Web Design - 05/19/2001 11:41 PM
This was taken directly from my CHP newsletter.
All credits go to Tim Donahue/CHP.
A recently located instruction manual, scrawled on a series of
old Denny's napkins, and located in the backseat of Tim
Berners-Lee's car for over 6 years has revealed the lost
10 Commandments of Web Design - now made public, exclusively at
Coolhomepages.com!
Commandment 1:
Thou shalt be clear about what the hell thou art presenting
to the user. Unless your user is the Amazing Karnac.
Commandment 2:
Thou shalt design the site so that it's appropriate for your
audience. Don't use a dark Tomb-Raider theme if you're an
online shoe store or a financial service.
Commandment 3:
Thou shalt not use java applets unless Moses himself comes
to your office and insists that you should.
Commandment 4:
Thou shalt not force a user to wait for a megabyte or more
of Flash file downloading as the first thing they experience
at your site.
Commandment 5:
Thou shalt make the more important parts of any given page
layout more prominent than the less important parts of
your page.
Look at the newspaper. The front page headline
is the biggest. There's a good-sized page 1 photo keeps the
page from becoming a visual wasteland of black type. There
are headlines above each story. There are sub-heads within
some stories. The body copy is legible, but not too big or
too small. The author bylines are small. There is a menu
somewhere on the page telling you how to find movies,
sports, etc. The page is organized in easy to understand
columns. There's a reason why every major newspaper in the
world adheres to these basic design principles.
Don't make your web designs look like newspapers. That's
not the point! If you don't get the point yet, wash, rinse,
and repeat the preceding paragraph.
Commandment 6:
Thou shalt not use too many colors. Thou shalt attempt to
learn something about color harmony.
Commandment 7:
Thou shalt kern thy bitmapped type unless thou wantest to
be known simply as "Shmendric, the Village Design Idiot"
Commandment 8:
Thou shalt look at thy site on a variety of browsers. Just
because you're on a PC using IE 5.5 doesn't mean your users
are. You can't accommodate every browser config for sure,
but it's horrifying how many site submissions we get that
ONLY look good on a PC on IE 5.5.
Commandment 9:
Thou shalt make sure your images are clear, and free of
those dreaded Mad-Cow disease causing jaggies. Jaggies are
not hilarious on your site. On somebody else's site,
jaggies may be hilarious -- but not on your site.
Commandment 10:
Thou shalt not be accused of Flash-love. It's habit forming
and causes hairy palms and blindness. Everything in
moderation grasshopper. Use Flash when it's appropriate.
[ May 19, 2001 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Matt Jacob ]
All credits go to Tim Donahue/CHP.
A recently located instruction manual, scrawled on a series of
old Denny's napkins, and located in the backseat of Tim
Berners-Lee's car for over 6 years has revealed the lost
10 Commandments of Web Design - now made public, exclusively at
Coolhomepages.com!
Commandment 1:
Thou shalt be clear about what the hell thou art presenting
to the user. Unless your user is the Amazing Karnac.
Commandment 2:
Thou shalt design the site so that it's appropriate for your
audience. Don't use a dark Tomb-Raider theme if you're an
online shoe store or a financial service.
Commandment 3:
Thou shalt not use java applets unless Moses himself comes
to your office and insists that you should.
Commandment 4:
Thou shalt not force a user to wait for a megabyte or more
of Flash file downloading as the first thing they experience
at your site.
Commandment 5:
Thou shalt make the more important parts of any given page
layout more prominent than the less important parts of
your page.
Look at the newspaper. The front page headline
is the biggest. There's a good-sized page 1 photo keeps the
page from becoming a visual wasteland of black type. There
are headlines above each story. There are sub-heads within
some stories. The body copy is legible, but not too big or
too small. The author bylines are small. There is a menu
somewhere on the page telling you how to find movies,
sports, etc. The page is organized in easy to understand
columns. There's a reason why every major newspaper in the
world adheres to these basic design principles.
Don't make your web designs look like newspapers. That's
not the point! If you don't get the point yet, wash, rinse,
and repeat the preceding paragraph.
Commandment 6:
Thou shalt not use too many colors. Thou shalt attempt to
learn something about color harmony.
Commandment 7:
Thou shalt kern thy bitmapped type unless thou wantest to
be known simply as "Shmendric, the Village Design Idiot"
Commandment 8:
Thou shalt look at thy site on a variety of browsers. Just
because you're on a PC using IE 5.5 doesn't mean your users
are. You can't accommodate every browser config for sure,
but it's horrifying how many site submissions we get that
ONLY look good on a PC on IE 5.5.
Commandment 9:
Thou shalt make sure your images are clear, and free of
those dreaded Mad-Cow disease causing jaggies. Jaggies are
not hilarious on your site. On somebody else's site,
jaggies may be hilarious -- but not on your site.
Commandment 10:
Thou shalt not be accused of Flash-love. It's habit forming
and causes hairy palms and blindness. Everything in
moderation grasshopper. Use Flash when it's appropriate.
[ May 19, 2001 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Matt Jacob ]
