The first thing you need to do in designing Web pages is to give some thought to who your audience is and what you want to communicate to them.  

Many information architects advocate using the idea of a "persona" in helping to design Web sites for various kinds of audiences.  This concept was first developed by Alan Cooper.  A persona is an imagined information user. The "primary persona" for a Web site is a common user who is interested in the information but needs some help in understanding. "Secondary personas" are users who already know a lot about the topics presented or have very specialized needs. Drawing on interviews with actual people or what you already know about the kinds of people who would like be interested in the information on your site, you can imagine a persona and how that persona would navigate your site.

I recommend that you figure out as clearly as possible who the primary user for your Web site will be so that you can imagine this primary persona in his/her interaction with your site. What does this person already know about the subject you are presenting?  What terms would this person already understand? What would this person want from your Web site?

Here are some principles to help you organize and design the site.

Unity

Content

Should be logically organized.

Language

Should be consistent in style, tone and diction.

Design

Should be consistent in use of textual and graphical elements.  Should use repetition of elements to signal similarity and relation. Should use contrast to signal hierarchy and difference.

Clarity

Content

Should be clearly organized, with a clear hierarchy of information.

Language

Should be clear and precise.

Design

Should use understandable layout with intuitive navigation.  There should be clear purposes for textual and graphical elements.

Economy

Content

There should be no superfluous or redundant material.

Language

Should be economical, not wordy.

Design

Should be simple and transparent. The best design usually does not call attention to itself.

Special considerations of Web page and Web site design

The first Web page that users encounter on a Web site is called the "home page," or sometimes the "splash page."  Since you don't know what size monitor any particular user may be viewing your home page on, it is advisable to design that initial page to be viewable on a 15-inch monitor without any scrolling.  That means that the viewable area of the page is about 620 pixels wide and 460 pixels high.   If you happen to have a larger monitor, you should periodically reduce the size of the window that you are viewing your Web pages through to give yourself an experience that is similar to the one most viewers will have.

Your home page should make a strong initial impression.  You should design the page with an understanding of what grabs the viewer's attention. 

According to Dr. Mario R. Garcia in Redesigning Print for the Web (48), "We know that the typical movement on a printed page goes something like this: reader enters the page through a visual element, primarily photographs or illustrations that are the largest visual mass on the canvas of the page.  From there. . .larger headlines generally capture attention first, then smaller ones."  Viewers follow essentially the same process when viewing Web pages.

Beyond this, Garcia says that his research has led him to the conclusion that viewers also generally "read" Web pages horizontally, from left to right.

Consequently, you should think in terms of having one dominant element or focal poing to capture the viewer's attention, then lesser elements that lead his/her attention from left to right across the screen.

(About creative Web sites: If a Web site is creative rather than informational, the organization can be more or less hidden from the user. This type of Web site is organized as an experience through which the user is led or which he/she is allowed to explore. With this type of site the designer might want to purposely disorient the user and hide from him/her a sense of  the overall site.)
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