Effective web design relies on making the right choices at the planning stages and making educated decisions about the type of site that will best suit your needs.

This is why we put a lot of emphasis on site planning, providing our clients with advice at each stage based on the ultimate objectives of their build. This also allows us to highlight any prerequisites to a build, for example making customers aware of the requirements for setting up a payments system on a retail site.
As with any technology web design is continually evolving and in the last few years web 2.0 has changed the face of the internet with database driven websites spawning the likes of Myspace & Facebook amongst a myriad of more standard sites that use database driven content. In broader terms web 2.0 is beneficial to you - the client, because it potentially allows you to update a site yourself using a content management system (CMS), saving you the inconvenience and cost of contacting a web designer every time you want to add or modify information.

Whilst many web designers will only chase the latest technologies, there is still a lot to be said for using more traditional web design methods such as html. Although this advocates the use of static pages that need a degree of web design experience to update, this suits many businesses especially those that do not need to update content on a regular basis, it can also allow for greater design flexibility, and in our experience still yields much more effective results in the field of search engine optimisation (SEO) for the time being.

Another common web design platform is Flash, this enables the production of more dynamic content for the web, often incorporating animated elements. Although this can be engaging, poorly thought through or over produced Flash sites can be the source of some frustration, or distract users from the point of a site.
We have seen so many Flash sites in the past that blow you away with animated and graphic content, yet fall short of the mark with regard to usability, or that distract you so much with graphical displays that they draw attention away from what the site is actually about.
Flash also poses problems when integrating certain types of functionality into a website, and Flash sites are inherently difficult to promote to the search engines effectively. Therefore we often recommend incorporating Flash elements where required but avoiding entirely Flash driven sites.
Keep in mind that if content is key then usability is king, every element of a site should have a purpose.

The most important consideration for any site is its interface design and the way in which users interact with it. We always recommend that this should be as straightforward as possible with an emphasis on usability and put a lot of effort into creating engaging user interfaces.
It is of paramount importance that users are able to navigate your site easily, and if you are selling or advertising, that your site both appeals to and engages your customers.

Its all too common for sites to include pointless animated content, that essentially serves to distract or frustrate users, and with the advent of web 2.0 we have seen many cases where sites can bombard users with too much information in too many locations distracting people from the core purpose of a site.