Web Design Principles

This page describes the principles we use to design web sites.

1. Focus on substance more than style. Search engines rate text not images, colors or special effects. Your customers have to be at your web site before you can dazzle them. Almost all of them get there through search engines.
2. Are dead simple to use. Customers can get to any page with one click using a standard menu that appears on the top of every page. A web site that is hard to navigate will not succeed.
3. Encourage customer feedback, make it easy for them to give it and thank them for it. We strongly encourage our clients to respond to customer feedback within 24 hours. Customers are wonderful sources of ideas. A web site can be a 24/7, world-wide focus group.
4. Include a list of customers including their logo, name and a one line description. Customers add huge creditability to your marketing. We do not fabricate customers or add customers we know to be fabricated to our web sites.
5. Include testimonials. Testimonials add huge creditability to your marketing. We do not fabricate testimonials or add testimonials we know to be fabricated to our web sites.
6. Include our client's name and logo in the top left hand corner of every page to maintain their brand.
7. Use our client's corporate color to maintain their brand.
8. Have "Make us your home page" and "Bookmark" options on their home page for the convenience of our client's customers.
9. Include a short, descriptive title on the top of every page so customers always know exactly where they are. Confused customers move on to other web sites. Descriptions improve search engine ratings too.
10. Mention awards our clients have won, their memberships in industry associations, their charity work and their partnerships or relationships with other companies.
11. Include our client's catalogs if they use them and provide a way to buy on-line if that is appropriate.
12. Include complete details on events our clients are sponsoring or involved in. The information is removed the day after the event.
13. Display appropriate decorations for major holidays such as Christmas, New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Halloween as well as company-specific and industry-specific holidays or events.
14. Include a link to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, etc. for the convenience of our client's customers if our clients are active in those communities.
15. Include a copyright notice on the bottom of every page.
16. Show our client`s e-mail, telephone, fax and address including ZIP/postal code, a map and a picture of their office so customers can contact them and find them easily.
17. Include our client`s staff's picture, biography, e-mail, telephone and mobile so customers can contact them easily.
18. Protect customer's personal details and credit card information by encrypting them before sending them over the Internet.
19. Include our client`s vision, mission and values. If our clients do not have them, we help develop them.
20. Acknowledge receipt of customer e-mails immediately. We strongly encourage our clients to respond to customer e-mails within 24 hours.
21. Include basic accessibility. Our clients can choose full accessibility if they wish.
22. Include a privacy policy and terms and conditions in easy to understand language. Our clients can choose formal, legal language if they wish.
23. Include the Google web site search facility in the upper right hand corner of every page so customers can find information easily on the web site by doing a keyword search.
24. Include a site map to make it easy for customers to find a particular page.
25. Do not contain spelling errors, typos or grammatical errors. Ever. Guaranteed.
26. Speak directly to customers in clear, polite, personal, easy to understand language.
27. Are extremely easy to read because we use large, familiar fonts on a white background with increased spacing between lines.
28. Are simple, clear. We are obsessed with simplicity and clarity.
29. Are consistent.
    1. There is one way to do an action on our web sites. As far as possible, that is also the way it is done on the rest of the web.
    2. We use the same word to refer to an action or concept every time. We don't say "develop" on one page and "build" on another. We don't say "customer" on one page and "client" on another.
    3. If text appears on more than one page, it is defined in one spot and included on all of the pages. If it changes, we change it once and the new version appears everywhere automatically.
30. Explain unfamiliar terms through a Glossary and by linking every unfamiliar word in the text to a definition. If customers don't understand a word, they click on it and our web sites define it for them.
31. Provide free answers to some common questions in our client's area of expertise via a FAQ. Our clients supply the text for this.
32. Provide some free, useful advice in our client's area of expertise to all customers. Our clients supply the text for this.
33. Use "American" English since it is so dominant on the Web. Our clients can choose other spellings if they wish.
34. Use dates in the format "Dec 12, 2011". Our clients can choose other formats or additional calendars if they wish.
35. Block spam using CAPTCHAs. This is for our client's benefit. Customers don't like CAPTCHAs so we use ones that are easy for them to use.
36. Never send unsolicited e-mails. Customers really hate that.
37. Contain only valid, tested HTML. There are no errors to confuse browsers. Ever. Guaranteed.
38. Give both metric (cm, meter) and Imperial (inch, foot) measurements to a world-wide audience.
39. Run correctly on the current and the two previous releases of the five most popular browsers:
    1. Internet Explorer
    2. Chrome
    3. Firefox
    4. Opera
    5. Safari
40. Run correctly on the current and the two previous releases of Windows and Max OS.
41. Do not mislead search engines by:
    1. Including "invisible" keywords in the same color as the background in the text.
    2. Including misleading or irrelevant meta tags.
    3. Including multiple copies of the same meta tag.
    4. Linking to link farms.
    5. Creating shadow domains and spurious redirects.
    6. Creating doorway pages containing many keywords.