This list is a work in progress compiled by the Brown web publishers who attend the monthly Publisher's Forum. By no means is this a comprehensive list, as more commandments will be added on an on-going basis.

Before you begin

Designing your site

Contents and Maintenance

Final Thoughts

Before you begin

Plan and draw. You wouldn't build a house by running out to Home Depot, buying wood and nails, and starting to hammer away. You would think about your ideal house and then draw blueprints. Do the same with your website.

Design a site appropriate for your audience. If you're designing a bulletin about street closings, you probably don't need a lot of graphics or a flash intro.

Think about layout. Make the most important elements most prominent.

Free is good! There are many free web tools available on Brown's web server. These include eform.cgi for form processing, a page hit counter, Web Auth, or statistics for your site. Information on how to use these tools is available at http://www.brown.edu/webpublishing/toolkit.html.

Designing your site

Tables can be good. Use them to format the page, and use specific dimensions-this will decrease load-time. However, as your skills improve, look to learn an all-CSS layout.

Use cascading style sheets to control the text formatting of your page instead of <font> and other formatting tags. Like SSI, CSS will save you from making the same change on many pages, help with making your pages look consistent across browsers and will decrease page load time.

When you have a choice, use externally linked style sheets instead of embedded or inline sheets.

Serve your site with SSI. If you have a section of the page that is repeated throughout the site, check to see whether you can use server-side includes. SSI is a separate file included in multiple pages that can be edited in one place-for example, if every page has a footer containing contact information, a link to "home" and a date of the last update, using an SSI would mean updating one file once.

Tell how big it is. Use the height and width attributes when displaying an image to make the page display more quickly.

Naming conventions are good.  Figure out how you want to name your pages and stick with it.  You can use mixed case (ie. pageName.html) or you can use underscores (page_name.html) but never put spaces in your file names.  You can use .html or .htm extensions, but don't use both.

Don't use too many colors.

Don't use too many fonts. Stay away from "cute" or "trendy" fonts like Comic Sans.

Check your site on a variety of browsers on a variety of platforms. Consider backwards-compatibility. At minimum, check your site on the most recent versions of both Netscape and IE on both a Mac and a PC.

Compress and optimize your images. These are the two easiest ways to decrease load time and make your site more accessible.

Proofread!

Design and maintain clear, consistent navigation. Look at sites like www.amazon.com and www.redenvelope.com. Each offers consistent, clear navigation throughout the entire site.

Keep distractions to a minimum. Things blinking, scrolling, rotating or otherwise moving irritate users instead of drawing attention.

Avoid frames.

Don't use graphics as text unless absolutely necessary.

Don't "borrow" graphics from another site. If you must use an image or text from another site, ask permission and credit the site and author.

Create margins. Don't let your text stretch from one end of the screen to the other. Readers typically won't read lines longer than 15 or 16 words.

Contents and Maintenance

Always create a link back to the department home page and to the Brown University home page. You never know how a user found her way to your site, so make sure she knows where she is-and how to get around.

Use titles to your advantage. This helps search engines catalog your page; it is what the user sees in the top of the browser; and it is the text that is saved when a user makes your page one of her Bookmarks or Favorites.

Include meta information-both descriptions and keywords. This helps search engines as much as titles do-sometimes more so.

Show yourself! Use your actual email address as the email link text. Users who use public terminals or print your page for later can't write to "contact us." And use "real world" contact information on your pages. Like it or not, we still rely on paper for much communication-give users a phone number, postal address, and (as necessary) a physical address.

Be clear about what you're presenting to the user. Don't make her wade through "happy talk" and graphics to find the point of your site.

Include a site map for large sites. No matter how elegant and efficient your navigation scheme may be, some users just prefer to see where everything is in one large index.

Reply. Make sure someone reads and responds to email generated by your site on a regular basis.

Do not use the words "under construction." Web sites are organic creatures-we constantly add, tweak, revise. If your site isn't ready for Prime Time, don't leave it where people might find it.

Be current. Let your users know when the information was last updated.

Finally

Remember that just because you have technology doesn't mean you must use it. Think about whether a two minute Flash intro, a really neat javascript, or a great sound file will really help users experience your site.

Ask! If you have questions about planning or design, contact webeditor at brown.edu. If you have technical questions contact webpublishing at brown.edu. And for group support, join the web publishers' listserv and attend our monthly brown bag lunches. ListServ