What best practices and conventions are there when designing and implementing a website?

Question

I'll soon be working on a personal website that will include static and dynamic content (starting with static content, with dynamic content added over time using both custom-written components as well as open-source solutions), however I'm fairly new to web design and development, so any advice on things such as directory structure, file names, document structure...anything. Thanks.

Answer 1

Make sure that you're diligent about separating the scripts (javascript) and styling (css) from content.

It's very easy to get carried away and leave styling embedded through your content pages, be they simple static or dynamically generated pages. And it is much harder to go back and clean up later.

Also, try to stay away from the table-based layout as much as possible right from the start. Use divs instead. They can be tricky to get working if you're not familiar with web design but divs are much more flexible in the log run.

Consider using a javascript framework: either Prototype.js or jQuery will do just fine and they will save a lot of time dealing with browser inconsistencies.

And the list goes on and on.. These were just a few things a thought of off the top of my head right now.

P.S. Use source control. Just as with any other software project, a versioning system will help tremendously if you ever want to roll back or simply decide to experiment with a new feature in a branch..

Answer 2

Usability is your friend. Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think! is pretty good, giving examples of conventions to follow etc.

Answer 3

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Why not use a content management system such as Drupal or Wordpress which can be customised and extended through the use of modules.

Both of these solutions are based on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP).

Answer 4

Develop/Design it in Firefox*, test it afterward in IE. You'll drive yourself nuts if you try it the other way around.

*(substitute any non-IE browser as desired)

Answer 5

Not sure if this is something you would consider a best practice or convention but I would start with a map of your web site. What kinds of pages are you going to put up there, how will you organize them and how will you construct the navigation.

I always start with questions like "What do I want this web site to do?" and "Who is going to be looking at this site?" and go from there.

Also consider how important this site is. Do you plan to focus on it until completion or is it something you are doing just for fun or when time allows? If the latter consider starting small. All to often I see people start personal web sites and never complete it (including me). The worse is when I see people put up a page or two and then have 10 pages of "coming soon".