Top Ten Ways A Designer Can Help You Build a Better Website

So much has been written about the world wide web and how to design a web page, you would think there is no more to say on the subject. Guess again.

While there's lots of technical talk, very little is said about the design process. How and why does a web site end up looking the way it does?

The truth? We think most web sites are not really designed as much as they are evolved. People look at hundreds of web sites and decide what they like the best and merge those qualities into their site.

Not a bad approach except that if you only cherry pick the best techniques from everyone else, your own message and identity may be muddled at best.

To us, a designer is an individual trained to create visual communications, who typically comes to the web with considerable experience in print or multimedia design. They are not necessarily experts in the technical aspects of web site construction or HTML code, but instead their chief talent is information design (more about that in #6 that follows). A designer should be able to not only conceptualize the appearance of the site, she/he should be capable of drawing/creating the graphics you will need.

Okay, show me the Top Ten Tips already!

Or if you like, view the PDF version here.