Chapter 2. Designing for the Web

In the early days of the Web, the creators of websites were primarily techies. They tended to have quantitative rather than verbal skills; they had studied languages such as C++ rather than English; they were the kids in college who hung out in the computer labs rather than at the student newspaper. In short, they didn’t have a lot of experience with publications.

Many early Web-heads were at pains to emphasize the differences between the Web and printed media, and were thus hostile to any rules or standards that appeared to be print-based. And when they did import skilled people from print media, it tended to be graphic artists. As anyone who’s worked in the print world can tell you, graphic artists are very concerned with art, but are not always too worried about whether the type on the page is readable.

But Web design is about content design, it’s about laying out content so that it can be read easily. It’s about organizing content so that it can be navigated and searched with ease. It’s about getting the right content to the right reader at the right time. For the majority of websites, what Web design is not is graphic or visually driven design. To design for the Web, you need to understand what the Web actually is, rather than what some would like it to be. The Web is a place people come to find stuff (content). It’s a functional place. Most people don’t hang around on the Web. They come to the Web to do things. Study after study reinforces the practical, functional mindset of the person who comes to the Web.

What’s the number one thing people do on the Web? They read. Words and numbers are the raw material from which the vast majority of Webpages are built. If reading is the primary activity on the Web, then readability is a primary function of Web design. Another primary activity on the Web is search and navigation. It follows, therefore, that the organization of content to make it easily searchable and navigable is a primary function of Web design.

The number one design principle for the Web is simplicity. Quality Web design should be all about making life easier for the reader to find content, and then making it easy for them to read that content.