Principles of Effective Website Design

Have a Clear Purpose in Mind.

Web sites should have a clear purpose for existing. They should concentrate on a particular theme or topic.

Know your Intended Audience.

Often the perceived correctness of a particular interface design is largely dependent on the personal preferences of the individual user. For this reason, an important first step in the design of a user interface is to know who will be using the interface. This site is primarily intended for those people who are new to web site design principles.

Build Confidence

Potential customers have to be confident in your products or services and company before they will buy from you.

Have a Well Structured Site.

A user interface needs to communicate clearly with the intended user. In order to communicate clearly, a user interface should be well organized and structured. Web pages within the site should have a consistent and predictable appearance, so that it will be easier for users make sense out of the web site. The best approach is to consistently apply a few basic design principles to each web page in the site.

Make Your Site Easy to Navigate.

If your web site is going to be useful, it must be easy to navigate. Navigation occurs at two levels; common navigation and navigation unique to a page. Menus are often used to aid navigation within a web site. Menus should be neither too shallow nor too deep. All websites should always offer a site map.

Keep your Site Current.

The World Wide Web is constantly changing, as new sites are developed and old ones are changed or go out of existence. It is up to you to keep your site current and accurate. Check your links from time to time to be sure that the external sites still exist, and add new links that are pertinent to your site's topic as you discover them.