Tom Loosemore outlines a set of 15 principles
Tom Loosemore recently outlined 15 principles which his team have developed to guide positive product development. The Principles have a air of common sense around them and certainly someone whos read the Cluetrain manifesto.
- Build web products that meet audience needs: anticipate needs not yet fully articulated by audiences, then meet them with products that set new standards.
- The very best websites do one thing really, really well: do less, but execute perfectly.
- Do not attempt to do everything yourselves: link to other high-quality sites instead. Your users will thank you. Use other people's content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa.
- Fall forward, fast: make many small bets, iterate wildly, back successes, kill failures, fast.
- Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don't restrict your creativity to your own site. Look at "One Big Weekend".
- The web is a conversation. Join in. Adopt a relaxed, conversational tone. Admit your mistakes.
- Any website is only as good as its worst page. Ensure best practice editorial processes are adopted and adhered to.
- Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.
- Remember your granny won't ever use “Second Life”. She may come online soon, with very different needs from early-adopters.
- Maximise routes to content: Develop as many aggregations of content about people, places, topics, channels, networks & time as possible. Optimise your site to rank high in Google.
- Consistent design and navigation needn't mean one-size-fits-all: Users should always know they're on one of your websites, even if they all look very different. Most importantly of all, they know they won't ever get lost.
- Accessibility is not an optional extra. Sites designed that way from the ground up work better for all users
- Let people paste your content on the walls of their virtual homes. Let users take nuggets of content with them, with links back to your site
- Link to discussions on the web, don't host them. Only host web-based discussions where there is a clear rationale
- Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent: After all, it's their most personal data. Best respect it.