These statements of architectural principle explain the thinking behind the specifications. These are personal notes by Tim Berners-Lee: they are not endorsed by W3C. They are aimed at the technical community, to explain reasons, provide a framework to provide consistency for for future developments, and avoid repetition of discussions once resolved.
Why doesn't HTML include tags for style? Why can't you put text inside SMIL? Why doesn't CSS include commands to transform a document? Why, in short, does W3C modularize its specification and why in this particular way? This essay tries to make explicit what the developers in the various W3C working groups mean when they invoke words like efficiency, maintainability, accessibility, extensibility, learnability, simplicity, longevity, and other long words ending in -y.
The following principles are fundamental to the design and implementation of effective interfaces, whether for traditional GUI environments or the web. Of late, many web applications have reflected a lack of understanding of many of these principles of interaction design, to their great detriment. Because an application or service appears on the web, the principles do not change. If anything, applying these principles become even more important.
Anticipation
Autonomy
Color Blindness
Consistency
Defaults
Efficiency of the User
Explorable Interfaces
Fitts’ Law
Human Interface Objects
Latency Reduction
Learnability
Metaphors
Protect Users’ Work
Readability
Track State
Visible Navigation
Organisational Design Principles
Google
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Focus on people their lives, their work, their dreams.
Every millisecond counts.
Simplicity is powerful.
Engage beginners and attract experts.
Dare to innovate.
Design for the world.
Plan for today’s and tomorrow’s business.
Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
Be worthy of people’s trust.
Add a human touch.
Government Digital Service
These guidelines are intended for people building digital services for the GOV.UK domain. … We believe that the work should do the talking, so underneath each of the principles there are examples of how we have applied that thinking in the work released so far.
The guidelines and Success Criteria are organized around the following four principles, which lay the foundation necessary for anyone to access and use Web content. Anyone who wants to use the Web must have content that is:
Perceivable
It can't be invisible to all of their senses.
Operable
The interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform.
Understandable
The content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding.
Robust
As technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible.
It's what enables us to debate whether something “Is Facebook” or “Isn't Facebook,” it's what allows us to evaluate whether anything we’re designing could be improved.
These are the principles that Danny Hillis used in the initial stages of designing a 10,000 Year Clock. We have found these are generally good principles for designing anything to last a long time.