This question seems like an oxymoron. How many personal websites have ever existed that are really good? Not many, but a few I suppose. Yet, I am asking this seemingly absurd question right now. It wouldn’t be my first attempt either. I thought for a first blog post that I would go through what I know and what I want in a new website:

1. Simplicity - Really, this should be the simplest, most obvious criteria for any website, but I have found that it is one of the hardest to achieve. Often times, I have some idea of some really elegant, pretty design for a site, and I always end up falling short of it. I have found out the hard way many times over that I do not have a good sense of design. Usually, I tend to try to make slick graphics and some complex (yet somehow simple) design, and it always comes out bad. No, I don’t need to have a great design in order to have a good website. Although it is a serious problem for many, I have always realized that content is what makes a website. Design should always come after content. It seems apparent to me that there are a few maxims to follow in order to keep a website simple, yet elegant:
1. Close that image editor, fast! - OK, maybe some amateur or professional graphical designer thinks that it is easy to use some imaging program and come out with a great design quickly. I, for one, have spent hours obsessing over a title banner to make it look just right. It never does. I am always dissatisfied. Maybe someday I will come up the perfect graphic in a relatively short amount of time. Until then, I am better off closing any editor after a few tries and using plain text, or maybe make a near plain text banner. Forget about other graphics. No chance any of those will work just right. A perfect and more primitive design will always beat a somewhat problematic design that looks a little more modern.
2. Stop fussing with the CSS. - It could always be a little more perfect, or it could always be a little more complex. Really though, for most people like me, CSS is most potent when left simple. Just stop fussing with it once it takes care of all the important stuff, or just do a little fine tweaking, not much.
3. On a personal site, use scripting for yourself, not others. - I always like fiddling around with some design approach that uses some scripting language or something a little more than html. These projects can be fun, but you can keep a website easy to edit using SSI just as easily as any sort of php approach. I always like trying new things (hence why I am starting a blog), but if you just want to get a website up and running, keep it traditional. Javascript need not be used on a personal website. I consider javascript to be an awful language that should never be used (ok, AJAX is great and makes js legitimate if you have a legitimate web application!).
2. Include what you want people to see - again, something obvious. Unfortunately, it is a mistake I have made before. This blog isn’t for me to write down all of my personal thoughts or divulge much from my personal life. Same goes for the main website. A personal website really shouldn’t be all that personal. Really, I just want to be able to write down some ideas, programming examples, and other things like that. You know, masked shameless self-promotion, except it might be useful to someone.
3. Design up, not down - Maybe this should be included under “simplicity,” but I think it is a little different. I have found that it is important to make a design that can be modified easily to include more content or to expand in different directions. It is always better to start small and build up, than it is to try and make a large and complex website from the beginning. On the last website I design (the website for the undergraduate ACLU chapter at the University of Chicago), I wanted to keep it simple. I did this for several reasons. First, I didn’t really want to spend much time designing the site. I took up the project, because I was the only who really could. I used pure xhtml and css. I only made a small gif for a favorites icon (admittedly, I spent too much time on this), and I had a title graphic from the start. I spent a little too long on the css, but it came out simple in the end. Now, I am modifing the site to include more content. Nothing special. I added some SSI commands to put common html snippets in seperate files. I might have approached this website in a different way if I had access to the server the site is on from the start. Anyways, I have realized that this start simple approach gives you the best sites. Same is true with programming, but that is not always apparent in web design.

I am looking foreward to getting back into web design. I stopped for a couple in high school, and I think that I may be able to do some much better work with a new and more mature perspective. I am really looking for a way to just make some of my ideas public. Just start to make a name for myself. This site should be an interesting project.