• Professional Appearance
  You want a site that's well organized.  Visitors can easily find what they want.  Color schemes and styles are in sync with your message.  The pages have a standard format with intriguing graphics or user interactions.  Your visitor doesn't arrive at the page and think, "I have to read all that to get what I need?" Your visitors should never produce a "Page Not Found" or find that they have inadvertently left your website.
  
  
• Visually Appealing Style that Corresponds with Your Message
  There are thousands (millions?) of nicely designed corporate-style websites.  This is not the style I would recommend for a non-profit trying to raise money for a children's aid program.  Conversely, a soft, feel-good visual style is probably not appropriate for selling Rock'n'Roll memorabilia.  One of our first objectives when starting a web design project is to determine what visual messages you want to convey to your visitors and reproduce that in a web-oriented format.
  
  
• Search Engine Friendly
  Your visitors should be able to find your website even if they don't know who you are.
  
  
• Development Transparency Without an Education in Web Design
  WHAT?  English please!  You want to know what's required to develop a website without having to read the Dummy's book on web design.  You don't want to get halfway through the project and find that there's some secret component to a successful website that's going to cost thousands of dollars.  You need a quote, an outline for the job, and explanations in simple English regarding what is needed to get the job done.  

Debra McNeill
Rev. August, 2011