Constance Lippert, Freelance Web Designer, Ann Arbor, Michigan

My mom has a talent for coming up with these one-liners..frequently memorable. One of them which I never forgot was an evening she and I were watching a Winter Olympics Ice Skating event,  marveling at the grace of Nancy Kwan gliding around the ice, she said "She's so good she makes it  look easy".

Well, web sites can be enormously complex but can look "easy". In Joomla!®™, for example, is a complex architecture made up of hundreds of programs. Creating a intuitive design is a challenge in this environment. There are a plethora of choices that come with the core programs and there are literally hundreds of 3rd party components and modules to choose from. Balancing what's best for your audience and what you can relistically administer can be tricky.

I like to go for simpler options. To me, too much 'stuff' is overwhelming to the user, and for the site owner to keep active. The idea is to keep things simple because an out-of-date website is the quickest way to 1) fall down on the search engine rankings, and 2) lose visitors.  So, if you're thinking about redoing your site, or starting a new one, remember that making it "easy" is a trick and you don't want to mess it up.