Website Criteria Guidelines

The six most important fundamentals of webdesign are the following:


In Order.

Content, Structure and Navigation, Visual Design, Functionality, Interactivity, Overal Experience.

Content

The content of a website is the most important element of all. Readers are going to the site not because of how it looks but because of what information the site contains. The content in other words is the major draw card for the site.

Structure and Navigation

Navigation refers to how a user may access the various pages within a website and the structure consists of the positioning, framework and accessibility of the website. A navigation bar is an open display of what the site has to offer sort of like the index of a website.

Visual Design

Visual design refers to the design structure of the individual pages. It is a visual communication of ideas that should reflect and compliment the content of the website. The aim for visual design is to engage the viewer's interest without distracting from the content itself. The content must still be readable.

Functionality

Functionality refers to how usable the website is. Do the links work and link to the right pages? Does all media play on command? Are the images optimized and displaying? Does the website work in all browsers? Have different display platforms been taken into account? These are just some of the questions a web site designer should be taking into account when designing a site.

Interactivity

Interactivity involves the participation of a user on a website. It usually consists of the interactivity between the website and mouseclicks controlled by the user to produce a visual effect.


Overall Experience

The overal experience is a combination of all the above elements done well. It determines how long a user will want to stay on your page for. A bad overall experience would make a user less likely to want to stay and also would not encourage them to return to your site. If the overall experience is a good one, your users will want to stay for a longer amount of time and may even return and/or reccomend your site to other viewers.