Design Content First

Principles of Design
Content First

If you learn
nothing else,
learn this...

Think Content First,
and Design from Content
By now, much of the novelty of the web has worn off, so most people aren't spending all their time passively looking at the cool stuff you can do with the web. They are looking for information. Give it to them.
First, ask yourself, "Who is my audience? What do they want?" You may have multiple target audiences, so you will have to take that into consideration. But in general, if you can define your audience, you can predict what information they want. Prospective students of a university graduate program want information about courses, graduation requirements, tuition, and funding sources, for starters. For a personal page, your main audience is probably your family, who want to see pictures of your kids, what's going on in your life, and when you're going to visit them. Make the information fit the audience.
Second, organize the information in some way that will make sense to your users. Don't bury information under non-descriptive buttons or links called "Stuff" or "Miscellaneous". If you think many people will just want a FAX or phone number, don't force them to slog through 18 links to find it. Split the information you think your audience will want into sensible categories, and let the design flow from what questions might occur to the person browsing your site. Also, don't be afraid to put information in more than one category.

Design is About Planning
An example of these content and design rules is this very site. Initially, people may want to go through it as a tutorial, so Next and Back buttons are provided. For these users, information is introduced in a linear manner, with later pages building on information in earlier ones. On the other hand, some people may just want to find tips on a specific topic, so the site is designed to allow for that as well. You should try to predict what questions might arise in a visitor's mind and put links to answers in appropriate spots. This isn't an exact science by any means, but some attempt to walk a mile in the shoes of visitors to your site will help them find the information they want.
You'll notice I didn't really speak of graphics here. While graphics can make your pages more attractive and help people navigate, they are not a requirement for people to find what they want on your site. There are spectacular graphics on worthless sites with no (or impossible to find) information, and lousy graphics on sites that are very well-designed. While the goal should be to have a design that's both visually appealing and easy to use, if you have to make a choice, choose intelligent organization over beauty.

A Final Warning
Finally, don't assume that Content First means that you should just dump every document you can find on your site, even if it's not organized and linked all that well. Sure, you'll have plenty of content, but a gold mine of information that people can't find is almost as worthless as a beautiful site with no information. The job is only halfway done when you get the information into HTML.



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