In a recent article entitle, Dogmas Are Meant to be Broken: An Interview with Eric Reiss from the online journal Boxs and Arrows Liz Danzico talks with Eric Reiss about his list of web principles for 2006. If you haven’t read the article I highly recommend giving it a read. Eric had some very profound things to say in the article, however it’s the web dogmas that impressed me the most.

Below I am showing the dogma’s because I have never before seen so much wisdom about the web expressed in such a concise manner. If you have no interest in reading the article, at least skim the dogma’s below. You won’t be sorry, it’s solid gold!

Web Dogma 2006

1. Anything that exists only to satisfy the internal politics of the site owner must be eliminated.
2. Anything that exists only to satisfy the ego of the designer must be eliminated.
3. Anything that is irrelevant within the context of the page must be eliminated.
4. Any feature or technique that reduces the visitor’s ability to navigate freely must be reworked or eliminated.
5. Any interactive object that forces the visitor to guess its meaning must be reworked or eliminated.
6. No software, apart from the browser itself, must be required to get the site to work correctly.
7. Content must be readable first, printable second, downloadable third.
8. Usability must never be sacrificed for the sake of a style guide.
9. No visitor must be forced to register or surrender personal data unless the site owner is unable to provide a service or complete a transaction without it.
10. Break any of these rules sooner than do anything outright barbarous.