After almost 20 years earning my living (partly) by designing websites, I have some advice for fellow designers as well as (more importantly) for website owners looking to have a re-design done. Keep it simple. Keep it fast. Make sure it works for EVERYBODY, and don't try to make the site to impossible things. This does not mean that all websites have to look and act as though they were built in 1995, but it does mean that if your site is unusable to more than 4 or 5% of the browsers out there, you have done something wrong. If when viewed on a 5-year-old monitor, you have to scroll side to side to see everything, you have done something wrong. If your site behaves oddly when viewed on Internet Explorer 9, you've alienated a good portion of your audience (and yes, I know IE9 is possibly the worst browser ever shipped). If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load when using a slow (under 1 MB/S) DSL, then it's too big. Follow me below the fold to get more.
Here are some tips to make you website simple, fast, and efficient:
1. Make all the pictures the right size. If you or your web designer are letting their web authoring program size your photos, you are slowing the site down, sometimes WAY down. Every picture should be sized precisely for the spot you want it to go before you put it there. This, alone, would double the load speed of half the world's websites.
2. Design using the simplest coding and page type possible. If you have a good reason to design in .asp or .jsp instead of HTML, then, by all means. But if the site would be the same, functionally, use HTML. WordPress and Joomla have their place on the web, but they shouldn't be used when straight HTML would work as well.
3. With very rare exceptions, don't use a picture of words (like a scan of a page of a brochure or a PDF). Use straight HTML text and embed the pictures. This loads faster, reads easier, and gets you higher on search engine searches.
4. The menu system you choose will be a key factor in how usable your site is. A site with less than 20 pages can usually have a full-access menu on every page. If there are many more than 20 pages, the site should be divided into "sections" that have their own navigation menus. Putting endless drop-down menus on each page makes for a very frustrating web experience - and many drop-down schemes don't work in the new Explorers.
5. Always make music and video optional for the viewer. they should never be on by default. Use a version of video conversion that is at least 2 or 3 versions old - that way most people can see them.
6. Never use Flash animation. I used to love it, but now, fully 1/3 of the world's browsers can't see it at all. Just don't use it.
7. Consider Google optimizing to be an integral part of site design. If nobody finds your site, it was all for nothing. Use only "whitehat" techniques (another diary) for optimizing. If someone offers to "optimize" your site for $100, they don't know what they are doing. If someone offers to "optimize" your site for $20,000, they are stealing your money.
8. You don't need a herd of techies to build your website UNLESS your website IS your business (like DailyKos), and has millions of visitors interacting with it - then you DO need a herd of techies.
If you have specific questions, want advice, or would like to hire me to build a website, you can contact me through my site at http://wyckoff.com