10 Commandments of Web Design

July 3, 2008 by

We’ve learned about church web sites from John McCain and Barack Obama. But the lessons don’t stop there.

Kem Meyer quotes a Business Week article, The 10 Commandments of Web Design. Here are four of the great bits:

  • Thou shalt not abuse Flash. The technology can easily be abused–excessive, extemporaneous animations confuse usability and bog down users’ web browsers.
  • Thou shalt not clutter. The web may be the greatest archive of all time, but sites that lack a coherent structure make it impossible to wade through information.
  • Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections. Some experts say Apple’s habit of creating glassy reflections under photos of its products has been far too commonly copied, turning the style element into a cliché.
  • Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography. Designers say that despite the increase in broadband penetration, plain text has gotten a second wind in cutting-edge web design.
Post By:

Joshua Cody


Josh Cody served as our associate editor for several years before moving on to bigger things. Like Texas. These days he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, and you can find him online or on Twitter when he's not wrestling code.
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8 Responses to “10 Commandments of Web Design”

  • Neil
    July 3, 2008

    Rule #1 – not abusing flash, alls i can say is spot on! Personally I’m not a big fan of using flash in website design, a banner being as far as it should go imho!


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  • SAL
    July 3, 2008

    Bravo. One more…never forget the target customer in the design; keep them at the center.


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  • seanpdesign
    July 3, 2008

    thou shalt not design websites to be like a maze.


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  • Deb Web Design
    July 4, 2008

    Hi
    I read – # Thou shalt not abuse Flash.
    I just add one think google and yahoo announced that their robots can crawl flash animation specially text – so flash is welcome to design in web deisgn >
    http://www.webguru-india.com/blog/google-boosts-flash-indexing/
    Deb


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  • Josh Lee
    July 4, 2008

    Thou shalt not have a separate site for every ministry on campus.


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  • Micah Davis
    July 8, 2008

    A personal mantra of mine is:
    “Thou shalt design as if thy mom could understand how to use your site.”


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  • Ryan Burns
    July 11, 2008

    Great link
    4. Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections
    That one got a chuckle out of me.


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  • Payel
    August 19, 2008

    Hi!
    Missed out an important element that makes an interesting website,didn’t you? Content is an integral part of a good website design apart from other aspects of web designing.
    Payel


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