Who are your audience? Your existing customers? A particular demographic? Knowing your audience is one of the most important factors in any marketing exercise, but when it comes to web design it's crucial.

I love showy sites - ones that use the latest version of Flash, Quicktime, Shockwave or whatever. It's amazing what you can do on the web these days, and there are some stunning sites out there. But then from many colleges, workplaces and net-cafes, proxy servers and firewalls can cause problems with high-end sites. You may be limiting your audience far more than you intend unless you keep your site as functionally basic as possible.

For every factor that your designer uses which may limit audience accessibility, be aware of that loss and make an active decision about whether it is worthwhile.

One of the most common factors is use of frames - these can cause all sorts of problems, especially with printing. If you choose to use frames, be aware of this. Make sure that it's worth it - often you can achieve the result you were after without using frames. I do design sites using frames, but prefer to always have a no-frame alternative version of the site available to users.

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