I see a lot of calls for help from novice Web designers here on the list, and examine a lot of fledgling page-design efforts as a result. In that process I've arrived at some basic rules that all novice designers should pay close heed to, in my not-always humble opinion. Here are the rules, with explanations following:

• If you have no aptitude for -- or especially experience in -- graphic design, don't pretend that you do and don't try to provide such services to your clients.


Here's why -
About 98% of your viewers/users prefer to see clean text-based pages than a garish mess of distracting background graphics, animated GIFs and substandardly chosen typefaces. If you don't have strong and proven skills in basic graphic design, then work within your limitations. (Take a cue from Yahoo: the fellows who founded it are worth over a billion bucks, and they use almost no graphics on their hugely successful site. Users go there for the well-organized content, not for pretty pictures.) Instead, concentrate on laying out your text in clean, orderly sections, perhaps making some sparing use of browser-safe colors for titles and headers. If you have professional- calibre graphics for your site created by others then use them, but cautiously and only when relevant. Graphic design -- even such "simple" matters as choosing colors and fonts for a page -- is a difficult and subtle art, which takes years to acquire real competence in. Although I get compliments on the "look" of sites I design, I know full well what my limitations are; I often spend hours deciding on the exact color, face and placement of a single button or title graphic. I use graphics sparingly on my sites, because I know that design is not my strongest suit. I do have a college night course on the subject under my belt, and fifteen years' experience in the publishing and communications business, but I still consider myself a design novice. It's not what I'm best at.


• If you're not an experienced or proficient writer -- ideally in documentation, marketing or journalism -- don't write or edit copy for clients.
  
  Here's why -
  Again: Users go to your site for the content, not the graphics. Content which is grammatically dysfunctional, vague or verbose undermines the credibility of the entire site, no matter how useful it appears. If you're not an experienced and skilled writer, hire someone who is. This applies especially to the "microcontent" of your site: navigational text, descriptive captions, section summaries and so on. The clarity and persuasiveness of a five-word link can have a great impact on whether or not a user follows it -- obviously those words must be chosen with care and skill.
  
  
• Well-structured, concise and useful content, together with good navigation, are by far the most important components of a successful site. Spiffy graphics and gadgets come a very distant third. Don't spend more time on superficial gimcracks than on content development and organization.
  
  Here's why -
  I just spent three months creating an intranet for a government department. Of that time, about eight hours were devoted to creating graphics. The other thousand or so were spent on organizing and rewriting content, devising navigation schemes, and writing routines that allow users to pick their *own* colours and graphics. (Or to disable them entirely.) OK, so this ratio is a little skewed, 1000:8. Intranets by definition are short on flash and long on ease of use, because users are on them all day, every day. But the axiom remains: Content is King. Far too many sites (both novice and "professional") look as if navigation and structure were fleeting afterthoughts, imposed quickly after the bulk of time was invested in finding particularly annoying background images and animated GIFs. But in fact navigation and structure are your first and by far most important priorities. If you haven't spent a 'lot' of time deciding how to organize and link the content on your site, it is doomed. Period. No amount of gadgets will save it.
  
  
• If you can't be rigorously self-honest about your weaknesses and limitations, don't get into this field in the first place.
  
  Here's why -
  This really is the theme of this entire post. No single consultant can be highly skilled at every component of site design, because the skills and aptitudes for different areas are so diverse. A brilliant programmer just will not be a great graphic designer too, or vice versa. So if a project emphasizes certain skills that you're not strong on, be prepared to subcontract those parts out. Or turn it down.
  
  
• Don't use proprietary WYSIWYG editors such as FrontPage as your principal development tools. If you can't code a cross- platform Web page by hand, you're in the wrong line of work.
  
  Here's why -
  What's wrong with them exactly? OK, how's this... they produce proprietary gimmicks that break some browsers. They generate huge rafts of terrible HTML that bloat your pages and crash browsers. They lull you into thinking that because a page looks a certain way on your system, it'll look that way on others. It won't. They hide the logic and intricacies of HTML coding from you, so that you don't learn how to fix broken code when you don't have your trusty WYSIWYG editor handy. They perpetuate the myth that HTML is a page-description language like PostScript. It isn't.
  
  
• If you're not prepared to spend hours every week simply learning more about HTML, CSS, XML, servers, browsers, graphic design, writing, industry news, Javascript, CGI, search engines, software and marketing -- you're still in the wrong line of work.
  
  Here's why -
  I spend a lot of my time in a state of partial panic just contemplating the mushrooming growth of the Web and the many technologies and techniques a designer must be familiar with to stay current. I spend a minimum of two hours a day just reading, examining code, testing new software and specs, and generally trying to stay abreast of the field. You can never assume that because something worked a certain way six months ago, it still does now. Whole new draft specs can appear at w3.org overnight, for languages or protocols you've likely never even heard of. On it goes. You must devote time, and lots of it, every week to staying informed. Complacency will kill you.
  

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