Guiding principles for web development

This website had always been running on Wordpress. I never liked looking at it, working on it, the sloooowness of it, I really really disliked the whole thing. So I wiped it.

After months of nothing, I decided to rebuild it and do it properly. Apart from having a new website, I also rediscovered why I got into UX in the first place. Tinkering here rekindled my love for web building. How so? Uncompromisingly building good products is satisfactory.

But what makes a product good ? It’s good when it’s well designed, and lest we forget: we design for people. Good design, good products meet the practical and emotional needs people have when using it.

My guiding principles to get there:

Practically, it should be functional

Scrutinized

To have a functional website you need to know what the function of your website is. Which may seem a basic observation, but it’s not exceptional that a product is developed in build mode from the bat, without some level of research and analysis having been done. We should at least know what we want to achieve with our product, which goal the user wants to achieve, who those users are, …

Enhanced progressively

You do not want to know everything - which is a futile wish anyway - but enough to get started. I strongly believe in “it’s easier to change the course of a moving ship” and in progressive enhancement. Don’t write / design / code it before you actually need it.

Content is king

So start with what you do need: your content. Your actual content, not lorem ipsum. It shouldn’t be final copy, but it should be appropriate. With the actual content at your hands, the following steps are easy:

1. mark it up with HTML
2. style it with CSS
3. enhance with JavaScript—if necessary

Bam, you have a functional website. But we’re not done yet! The following bit is often forgotten yet is equally if not more important: make sure it is functional for everyone.

Accessible & performant

Grey text on dark backgrounds is very hip, but also near illegible. Your website should be legible, navigable, interpretable for, and inclusive of everyone. You may think that this benefits only a handful of people, but then you’d be wrong. There are the people with permanent (e.g. color blind) or temporary (e.g. had eye surgery) impairments. But there are also those who do not have a high-end phone/computer, or who do not have the latest updates installed, or who do not have an extensive internet subscription plan, or … ¹ Not to mention the environmental cost of storing, downloading, rendering data, and keeping our appliances running.

Which is why I’m a strong advocate of lean websites. The technology behind them should be as lightweight as possible. I mentioned HTML and CSS earlier by purpose, browsers are powerful tools nowadays. Let them do the heavy lifting, not React. Frameworks and libraries are not inherently bad, but they should be used consciously.

Emotionally, it should be meaningful

Supportful

We all have a need for meaning and understanding. Your website should not only have a purpose, it should also be evident. The content should support the purpose, and the design should support the content. They should all be related in ways that make sense. If so, your story is coherent, easy to understand and thereby satisfying our human needs.

Simple

Websites have a time & attention cost, so it pays to be frugal. To strive for simplicity, which does not mean devoid of complexity, but irreducibility. There should only be as many elements as necessary, and they should be as complex as they need to be. Adding bells and whistles is easy, keeping to the essence is much harder. Doing less means thinking more², but this thoughtfulness is noticed and appreciated³.

Distinct

We also need to experience beauty and joy. Mere supportful and simple design can be beautiful..ly dull. It brings no joy. The difference between forgettable and meaningful is often in the details. A good designer spends most of their time on them, adding personality in little ways.

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