These are the things I strongly believe in and try to follow as a web designer:
- Function over form.
- Usability over eye-candy.
- User experience over features (quality over quantity).
- Agile over waterfall.
- Design should simplify the experience and save time.
- Design should not make you think.
- Web designers who code have a better understanding of the medium.
- The browser is the natural environment of a website, therefore a good portion of a website should be designed in the browser.
- A website should always be responsive, one web FTW.
- A website should always be accessible.
- HTML, CSS and other source code should be available to everyone—sharing leads to a better web.
- Design without content is decoration, and decoration is over-design.
- Content is king.
- A website is never finished.
- Making websites is all about finding the balance between the needs of everyone involved in the project (clients, designers, developers, users, etc.).
- Keeping up with the industry and educating the client is the obligation of the web designer.
- Small details make the difference.
- Design is not how it looks, but how it works.
- Design should be user-centred.