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Our Basic Design Philosophy
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- Design for People
- Don't Limit Your User Base
- Accessibility
- Internationalization and Localization
- Create a Match Between Your Application and the Real World
- Make Your Application Consistent
- Let Users Know What's Going On
- Keep It Simple and Pretty
- Put the User in Control
- Forgive the User
Remember that the purpose of any website is to enable users. So, the first things to establish when designing your application are:
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who your users are
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what you want to enable them to do
The important thing is that you know your audience, and you understand both their goals and the tasks necessary to achieve those goals.
If you are designing a website for use by engineers, or by children, or by system administrators, be sure to create an application that can be used by all engineers, children, or system administrators, including those with disabilities or those who are native speakers of a language different from yours. Be aware of accessibility issues and internationalisation and localisation issues, many of which are addressed by the guidelines in this document.
Accessibility means enabling people with disabilities of some kind to participate in life's activities: in this case, specifically to use your software. For example:
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Color-blind users may not be able to use your application if you rely only on color-coding to distinguish different types of information
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Users with hearing impairments may not be able to use your application if you rely on sounds to indicate critical information
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Users with limited movement may not be able to use your application if you don't provide keyboard equivalents for commands
Internationalization is designing software so that it can function in different language environments. Localization is the process of actually translating the messages, labels, and other interface elements of an application into another language.
Make Your Website Consistent
Make your website consistent with itself and with other applications, in both its appearance and its behavior. This is one of the most important design principles, and probably the most famous, but it is also frequently ignored.
Consistency enables users to apply their existing knowledge of their computing environment and other websites to understanding a new website. This not only allows users to become familiar with new applications more quickly, but also helps create a sense of comfort and trust in the overall environment.
Always keep the user informed of what's going on in your application by using appropriate feedback at an appropriate time. The user should never have to guess about the status of the system or of your application. When the user performs an action, provide feedback to indicate that the system has received the input and is operating on it. Feedback can be visual, audio, or both. If the system will take a long time to process the request, provide as much feedback as possible about how lengthy the operation will be.
Your website should enable the user to concentrate on the task at hand. So, design your site to show only useful and relevant information and interface elements. Every extra piece of information or interface control competes with the truly relevant bits of information and distracts the user from important information. Hence, don't clutter your website, and don't overload the user with buttons, menu options, icons, or irrelevant information. Instead, use progressive disclosure and other techniques to limit what the user sees at any given moment.
Finally, present your navigation system and content in an aesthetically pleasing manner. A disorganized, cluttered-looking website with a few elements can be just as distracting as an organized interface with too much information. Make sure that dialog elements are cleanly-aligned, and do not overuse or misuse color or graphics.
Remember that computers exist to serve humans. A user should always feel in control, able to do what they want when they want. This means you should generally avoid modes; users should be able to switch between different tasks (and specifically, different windows) at any time.
The user should also be able to tailor aspects of the website to fit personal preferences (Web 3.0)
Forgive the User
We all make mistakes. Whether we're exploring and learning how to use the system, or we're experts who just hit the wrong key, we are only human. Your application should therefore allow users to quickly undo the results of their actions.
(originally adapted from the Gnome.org development guidelines)
Our Basic Design Philosphy