Think about who your potential audience is and why they will visit your site. What do you want to share? What will they be looking for? The answer to these questions should shape your design.
There is a difference between designing for faintly curious web surfers and for people who are searching for information about a particular topic. The Yale/CAIM Style Guide explains this difference well.
If you are trying to attract casual web surfers you will want to have something that engages attention on your opening page. What graphic, colors, headline, or multimedia will catch their attention?
If you are doing a site for an audience that is looking for particular information, is it clear what they will find and where they will find it at your site? Will a flashy graphic or multimedia introduction seem like a time-consuming distraction? You still want to engage attention, but the content must be the focus.
What kind of computers will your audience be using? If you are designing for an intranet or an audience that most likely has the latest browser and high-speed, broadband access, you have more freedom to try JavaScript, multimedia and audio elements. If you are appealing to a broader audience, which will include many with 3.0 browsers, you need to make other decisions about your elements.
Continue to "Notes about Structure"
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Who is Your Audience?