The best Web sites are better than Reality.

A general principle for all user interface design is to go through all of your design elements and remove them one at a time.

On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here?

Usability rules the web. Simply stated, if the customer can't find a product, then he or she will not buy it.

Progressive disclosure defers advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone.

Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.