Three

This morning, Karin and I met with an organization that's preparing to re-do their website. They're going about it the right way — starting with basic strategy and planning — and we were asked to submit a proposal to lead them through this process. Since that's basically what I do here, I was there to talk about it.

During some great Q&A, they asked a very, very good question:
What are the three most important things to a great website?

Karin has her answers; here are mine:

1. Focus. It's tempting to try to tell a story about everything to everyone. This is a great way to make something that's not useful to anyone. Focus sharpens content, sharpens message, and most importantly, helps your visitors!
2. Clarity. Clarity comes from focus. But even if you focus your content well, it must be well organized and presented. Clarity helps your visitors.
3. Standards. Web sites and applications should adhere to published web standards. The process of creating semantic markup that is standards compliant naturally results in a site that works well even on old browsers and handheld devices, is accessible to the visually impaired, and is easily indexed by search engines (helping people find your site). Web standards help your visitors. (Do you detect a pattern here?)
   
   And then, because really items 1 & 2 are nearly inseparable, I allowed myself a number four.
   
   
4. CONTENT! Because this is why people are coming to your site. Ultimately, this is the only reason they're coming, so make it worth their while.

So those are my top three (or four) elements of a great web site.

What are yours?