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Building a website is easy. Anyone with internet access, any one of the myriad of HTML editors, and a little patience can do it. Making it user friendly is another story, though. There are many considerations you must keep in mind when attempting to make your site user-friendly.

The first thing anyone must do is consider the lowest common denominator. Meaning, think like someone who isn't all that computer savvy, having an outdated computer system, perhaps still using Netscape 4.7, and maybe even still on dial-up. With that in mind, you want to maximize your screen real estate, the speed of your page loads, and make it work with as many browsers out there as possible. So how do we achieve this?

Ultimately, you want to follow the very basic fundamental of Web Design: Keep it Simple. The first thing you want to consider is how much of your page will be viewed "above the fold" in 800x600 resolution. "Above the Fold" means what the user sees without scrolling. Given that, you want to maximize your content, and minimize your navigation and logo. Don't make your logo 300 pixels high when it looks just as good when its 150 pixels high. Keep vertical space in the forefront of your mind at all times. Don't put a 15 pixel space between your logo and the next section when it looks just fine with 7 pixels.

Another area to consider is to only use graphics when you have to. For instance, if you have a page titled, "My Biography", don't make it into a graphic. Keep it as text. This is something that inexperienced web developers do a lot of, usually because they like the look of anti-aliased text. As good as it looks, it comes with a price often paid by the lowest common denominator.

Keep all your navigation links in the same area. Whether you decide to use a horizontal navigation structure near the top of the page, or a vertical navigation structure on the side, try to keep all main links together. That doesn't mean you have to make every link have equal weight and prominence.

Consistency is key. As much as we might want to get fancy and create different designs to set the various parts of our site apart from each other, consistency is comforting to your users. If a user goes from one page with one design to another with a completely different design, they may question whether they're on the same site or not. That is where you could very well start losing your audience's attention.

Javascript isn't always the answer. Javascript should not be used to support key functions of your

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