Web design is less an art that most people think: right below the creatively-driven surface, a website is a science. Like any user interface, basic techniques must be employed to keep users involved and informed while visiting any website. To help other designers and to speak to customers about my scientific philosophy, I've published this list of principles I employ when starting a design project.

1) Establish a purpose.  We don't make websites just to have something that looks nice, we make them to serve a purpose, and this is the first consideration when creating a website.

2) Study the target audience.  It's important to know who needs to visit this website, what they'll be looking for, and how to show them that they're at the right place so they won't leave.  Usually customers know their target audience better than I do, so I rely heavily on their suggestions.

3) Follow conventions.  When the internet was born, artists and designers embraced it as completely untammed territory where design conventions could be broken and everything could be 100% different.  Successful websites proved that this wasn't true.  Although every website needs unique elements that set it apart from the rest, the underlying functions should conform to standards and feel like what people are used to.

4) Get rid of unnecesary extras. Everything about a webpage should be designed with the end user in mind.  Often, pages with extra java applets, animations, and superfluous graphics everywhere only distract visitors from the purpose of the website.  

5) Test.  Web pages should always be tested, especially with the target audience of the web page.  No comment should be heard without consideration. Often when I test web pages, I'll get the "I don't know anything about web pages, so that's probably why it was hard for me to find that link." response at least once.  I have to work on users to make them understand that it doesn't matter whether or not they know anything about web pages, they're human, and I'm designing for other humans, many of whom also know nothing about web pages.  It's our job to cater to the needs of as many users as possible.  90% of the time, there's no sacrifice involved in doing this... it's little risk and all reward.  It's easy to make a website both asthetically pleasing and easy to get around.

6) Accomodate every browser.  It's pretty simple to make a website functional in any browser, on any computer, with only a little bit of thought put into how a site is coded.  I would never tell a visitor at one of my websites that they must use Internet Explorer and have their resolution at 1028 x 768 with the highest possible color setting and most expensive graphic card installed.  Why should they do that, just for this website?  If it's that big of a deal, they'll just go somewhere else.  It's much easier, and friendlier, to just use simple code that every browser can interpret.