The 10 Commandments of Web Design
To try and make sense of it all, BusinessWeek.com canvassed a broad range of Internet luminaries to discover the design rules they live by right now. Contributors ranged from the guru of Web usability, Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, to the design director of NYTimes.com, Khoi Vinh, and John Maeda, president-elect of the Rhode Island School of Design. These 10 commandments of Web design for 2008 are the combined results of our survey. For the full list of contributors, see the end of the story. 1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash. Adobe's ( ADBE ) popular Web animation technology powers everything from the much-vaunted Nike ( NKE ) Plus Web site for running diehards to many humdrum banner advertisements. But the technology can easily be abused—excessive, extemporaneous animations confuse usability and bog down users' Web browsers. 2. Thou shalt not hide content. Advertisements may be necessary for a site's continued existence, but usability researchers say pop