Web Site Design and Setup - Customer-centered Design

Ultimately, the customer is the most important element of the Web site, and thus design decisions need to reflect the customers' interests above all. Designers must be on the lookout to avoid too much or too little information, excessively long or convoluted registration or purchasing processes; an excessive or confusing dearth of advertisements; too many or too few clickable links; unobvious navigation schemes; a shortage of helpful tools such as search engines, site maps, help pages, or links back to a home page or other logical starting point; color schemes that strain the eye or render the text difficult to read; complex graphics that lower-end systems can'thandle; and a host of other design sins.

Another important rule of effective Web-site design is that there is no such thing as static perfection. Rather, Web sites must constantly evolve to reflect and accommodate transforming business climates, improving technological capabilities, and, perhaps most importantly, shifting customer expectations. Effective corporate Web sites thus require constant updates and tweaking. If a site undergoes no substantial change for too long a period, customers may get the impression that the company isn't keeping pace with demands or technology, or that in some other way the company's site may not cater to their needs as well as that of the firm's competitors.