•  Organize visually what should be organized logically.
Your control factors are color, typography and placement.

•  People don't read Web pages, they scan them.
This places an emphasis on design dominated by bullets and sub-heads. It also places a premium on writing in brief.

•  If all life is based on carbon, then all Web interaction is based on the three-click rule. Get the user to the desired result in three clicks, or risk losing them on the fourth.
Jakob Nielsen recently updated this: on average, Web visitors will leave in one minute, 49 seconds if they don't see what they want.

•  In the Web world, information will be either a functionality (a thing you can do) or content (things you read). Data is not synonomous with information.
When it comes to things you can read, categorize by production needs (timely versus timeless) before categorizng by interest (global verus local, category as opposed to subcategory).

•  Visitors have a four-snap mental sequence when arriving at a Web page -- what does it say, what does it do, should I stay or should I go, and if I stay, where do I go next?
The where-next is crucial. Links need to clearly present what lies beyond. It's called the managed expectations theory. Beware overly vague categories.

•  There's a difference between a label (a category) and a headline.
Verbs denote action. "Browse our home collection" will get more clicks than "home collection." You want to see a Web site that understands verbs? Martha Stewart.

•  Writing for the Web is about writing for the ear.
Credibility in a vitrual realm is greatly enhanced by a human tone of voice.

•  Information needs to be presented in increasing levels of depth.
The 5 to 10 word headline, the 50 to 100 word abstract, the 200 to 400 word feature, and after that, as many screens of detail as the user wants to plow through.

•  Study your visitors. No Web site is 100 percent correct from Day One.
Just as great sports teams make half time adjustments, Web editors need flexibility to react to user patterns. The first place to start in user path analysis is comparing the most popular pages to the most popular exit pages.

•  There is no math in trying to outsmart the user. The user will make you smart.
Site owner after site owner has learned the hard way that it's not what you want to present, it's what your visitor comes looking for. Anticipating needs and filling them is the secret to success. Your Web site does not need to follow your org chart.

•  Always test users, but never listen to what they say. Watch what they do.
Ask them to do various tasks, and watch where they click. A survey is not a test.

•  A good project begins with a good want ad.
Different skill sets are required for on-screen and off-screen work. Since the behind-the-screens technologists are generally in charge, too many decisions wind up being based on little more than tools. Think of it as the difference between carpentry and woodworking. There's no Microsoft certification for snappy verbs.

•  Search engines are designed to reward success and promote quality. A great deal of effort is wasted trying to game the system.
Even worse, it's a fine line between being search-engine friendly and human-unfriendly, and site after site misses that mark.

DESIGN DETAILS

•  The more upscale the brand, the fewer elements per page.
Admit it. You've seen thousands of ads, and you never noticed that before.

•  Put category navigation on the right, not the left. It's not readability (left to right) but usability.
The scrollbar is on the right, which means most times the cursor is on the right.

•  No search function is better than a bad one.
People use the search button in the same manner as which they shop in the physical realm. Some people meander and look around. Some people beeline for the clerk and ask. Some people go straight to their favorite spot. In the case here, the search box is the clerk.

•  The more advanced features you add to a search, the less usable it becomes.
First proved by Nielsen and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Search should be persistent (every page) and consistent (same place on the page). The convention is the word search, a text input box, a Go button, and a link to an advanced search. Note. The advanced search will rarely be used.

•  Never assume your reader will read to the very end and navigate from there.
Good navigation means never having to use the back button.

•  Never make someone register for anything if they don't have to.
Nothing drops traffic like registration.

•  Every pixel is precious.
White space is beautiful; wasted space is expensive.

PROJECT DYNAMICS

•  I can put wings on my car, but it won't make it an airplane.
The preaching against scope creep is not always backed by action. Paradoxical but true -- a short cut in planning will almost always slow down the process, not speed it up.

•  You can't lead from the bottom.
Your job on the way up is to make the people above you look good. One dissent is input; the second dissent is an argument.

•  I know what you pay me to give advice -- what would you pay me to take it?
My candidate for greatest-ever fustrated consultant quote. Remember, consulting work is as much about dealing with failure as it is dealing with success, and it's as much about the humans as it is about the work.

•  When something blows up, the over-riding task is to fix it, not to affix blame.
There's an old saying: "It's amazing what can get done if no one cares about getting the credit." Here's a new take on it. It's true.

• When at a conference table, try to sit directly next to your rival.
It's more disarming than peering across.

SHOW SOME RESPECT

•  Both the AP Style Book and the Chicago Manual of Style say the term is "Web site," two words, capital w.
How much can you expect from a field when the people in it can't spell it?

INTRANETS

•  Bottom-up publishing. Company after company misses this. History is clear – the success of an intranet depends on the ease of publishing.
Corporations are about governance and control; bottom-up publishing runs counter to that. Publishing should require nothing more than a browser.

•  Personalized Portals. A field largely dominated by companies trying to sell you what they have made instead of what you need.
There is, however, a simple brilliance involved in a personalized news/utility/point-of-entry page. The more you automatically and accurately present information, the fewer pixels needed for navigation. Nearly a third of the average page is lost to navigation. Do personalization correctly and it's tremendous.

•  Extensibility is a fancy word meaning "think ahead."
Just amazing how often you see sites where you have to rework an entire page just to add one new thing; always leave modular spaces that can be swapped in and out.

The idea here is to marry technology, content, graphic design and information design. The verb "marry" is intentional, because marriage is a mix of things you love and things you have to put up with.