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.

Clear content, simple navigation and answers to customer questions have the biggest impact on business value. Advanced technology matters much less.

In the attention economy, anyone trying to connect with an audience must treat the user's time as the ultimate resource.

Ultimately, users visit your website for its content. Everything else is just the backdrop.

Popularity is the product of two factors: (a) how compelling material you offer, and (b) how easy it is to access it. Host free pirated movies and users will flock to the site, even if it's difficult to use.

On the Internet, it's survival of the easiest.... Give users a good experience and they're apt to turn into frequent and loyal customers. But ... it's easy to turn to another supplier in the face of even a minor hiccup. Only if a site is extremely easy to use will anybody bother staying around.

Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.