http://www.strayhawkeye.com Two parts show and tell, one part soapbox. Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:17:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.strayhawkeye.com/2010/05/24/random-thoughts-on-web-design/ http://www.strayhawkeye.com/2010/05/24/random-thoughts-on-web-design/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 01:27:35 +0000 Kearn http://www.strayhawkeye.com/?p=1555 Admittedly, this site doesn’t even follow all of them (I keep meaning to do a redesign, but I barely get enough time to make regular posts, as you may have noticed), but a few thoughts on things that make good websites:

• If there is a navigation tree, it should have 3-7 items at each level, no more, no less.  Nine may be allowable at the highest level, but is never actually necessary.
• No one tool / website / page / area should do more than one thing.
• One thing is defined as something you can explain in one sentence without a conjunction.
• Never try to impress your users with how complicated something is – they will not be impressed, they will leave.
• Give the eye room to breath.
• Be consistent everywhere.
• Once your user has seen the home page, no other page or behavior should surprise them.
• You are not all things to all people, your site can’t be either.
• Never, ever, ever build anything in flash.
• Blinking things distract people and we are all already too distracted the way it is – never make anything blink.

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