What’s the difference between a great website and an awful one? Is it too subjective to say? Can you even compare sites as divergent as Google, Facebook, and Basecamp? While there can be some room for opinion, there are definitely some nearly universal principles which separate the virtual wheat from the chaff.

The worst Web design mistakes are those which impair the user’s ability to use the site. These include, among others:

• Coding errors: Whether a missed XHTML tag, a programming typo, or incompatability between Web browsers, a small mistake can make the webpage function improperly or disappear altogether.
• Hard-to-read text: Lack of contrast between background and foreground, such as white text on a yellow background, hinders or prevents the user from reading the page.
• Incomplete or inconsistent navigation: A website should be intuitive to move from page to page, and have no dead-ends. A lack of an easy-to-use site menu or pages which have no outgoing links will frustrate users and make them likely to leave your website altogether.

A perfect Web design, on the other hand, can take many forms depending on the user. Google could be perfect in its easy search simplicity; Slashdot appeals to the tech crowd by providing an endless stream of interesting articles. Great sites have some similarities, though:

• Useful and easy: Websites should generally have some helpful purpose for the user, such as providing information, completing a task, or streamlining purchases. They should also be simple enough for the target user (for example, complexity may be fine for an audience of computer programmers), while letting them accomplish what they want to do as efficiently as possible.
• Uses current technology: You don’t have to have a massive database-driven website with all the bells and whistles, but it needs to be contemporary, both on the surface and under the hood: That tables-based site I made a decade ago was pretty cool back then, but looks totally amateurish compared to today’s common WordPress template.
• Widespread appeal: Though it’s a bit arbitrary and hard to predict, the traffic and subscribers to a website are a definite indication of its design quality. If a million users are going to the site repeatedly, chances are the great design has something to do with it, be it in functionality, ease of use, or some other factor.

You can check out The Non-Designer’s Design Book by (the other) Robin Williams, or some of the other books on my list of inspirations for more info.

What other major principles, positive or negative, would you add to my list? How’s your favorite site stack up? Which sites have you found to be absolutely horrid, and which ones were totally amazing?

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• Learn the Basics of Design This Weekend [Weekendhacker] (lifehacker.com)