With the Internet being so ubiquitous, it seems like everyone is a web designer these days. So how do you make your portal standout above the rest with a timeless and enduring design?

Here are a few tried and true tips for achieving web design perfection.

Begin With The End in Mind
Before designing a web site, take a step back and objectively ask "What are we trying to accomplish with this web site?".

Is the portal a revenue generator? If so, how much? Is it strictly informational? Interactive? All of the above?

Get consensus from everyone involved in the project early on so that they understand the end goal. When the inevitable questions, concerns, and "analysis paralysis" sets in, the end goal has the final say whether a decision is in or out.

Form Follows Function
Today's web sites are far more interactive than traditional marketing and media, yet many web designers have an entrenched background in print and television marketing, which emphasizes one-way broadcasts to customers instead of two-way interactive dialogues.

If the end goal defines "what" you want to accomplish, then the function of the web site should shape "how". It is rarely the case that form is the means to a web sites end, unless you're creating brochure-ware.

Is the function of your portal to help customers find exactly what they're looking for? If so, then a search centric design would follow some common conventions, such as placing a search text box towards the top of the page with room for at least 30 characters.

"But the search button should be Red to match our corporate logo" someone might say. "No, the next step is to make sure the search engine actually works and returns relevant results!" the web designer should reply.

Only after the functional requirements are met should the aesthetic form be addressed.

Less Is More
I have 2 pictures of myself from 1977. In one of them, I'm wearing bell bottom pants and a wide collar disco shirt (ala John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever) and in the other picture I'm wearing good old Levi's jeans and a T-Shirt.

Which picture do you think is more timeless? Which one do you think makes me cringe when I look at it?

The point is, there is a price to pay for being "fashionable". You should not follow cool web design trends that will later look dated (and perhaps comical). The most bare boned, functional portals may not win any graphic arts awards, but you can bet they will be still be serving their purpose in 3-5 years with little need for aesthetic changes.

Examples of excess in web design today include:
Flash Intros (with the obligatory "skip intro" buttons)
Graphical or Iconic menus that only reveal their true purpose on hover
Anything animated

If you sense that a web design is excessive, walkthrough a deconstruction exercise asking the team to remove as many elements as possible and still meet the end goal and functional requirements. You'd be amazed at how much "fluff" can be removed from portal designs.

Color is Better Than Black and White
Ahhhh.... you've made it! Congratulations! Your portal meets the stated end goal and serves it's functional purpose to the best of it's abilities.... but.... well.... it does look a little bland.

Because color and function are intertwined, you may want to revisit the functional aspects of the design. For example, can you color code data grids with red or green rows if they deserve any emphasis? Can you call attention to particular elements using bold fonts? Always seek to make color part of the information whenever possible.

When you do start splashing the design with some color to spice it up, keep the following rules and facts in mind:
The contrast of dark fonts on a white background is preferred.
The human eye objectively interprets earth tone colors as being naturally timeless. Anything else is subjective.
8% of males and 0.5% of females are red/green color blind.

Use the Golden Ratio
Web sites like hot or not appeal to human's innate (and often superficial) ability to identify a ratio known as the Golden Ratio, or Phi.

"What is beauty?" is an oft asked question pursued by many artists for centuries, and the answer is (drum roll please) .... 1:1.618.

Because web design is fundamentally the composition of several rectangular elements, this golden ratio can be applied to almost every design decision.

When critics say something doesn't "feel" right in a web layout, it may be because the Phi ratio is well implied in one area but grossly defied in another.