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Usability, efficiency, appearance. I use those criteria when I create websites. Yes, I do mean in that order. Let me tell you why.

Until June of 2002, I connected to the Internet like many people, via a modem and a 24000bps connection. Needless to say, I dreaded going to major company sites and waiting for their useless flash intros to load or all their graphics to come up. Therefore, that tainted my view of using technology for its own sake. In addition, most people I know do not just surf anymore, they are looking for something specific when they are on the Internet. I love sites that are designed in such a way that you don't have to second guess where you should be looking or clicking to get where you want to go. Sites don't have to be fancy or even pretty if they work.

For this site, I wanted to try a JavaScript menu, but I had a very hard time finding one that would work with the four major browsers (IE, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla). Many of the pre-built menus I found "degraded well" meaning that they don't even display. To me this is unacceptable. Finally, I found a menu at Brothercake. It isn't the fastest loading menu I've seen, but at least it works in all four browsers. The menu isn't called until the page finishes loading so that the content appears first and then the menu is called. I tried having the menu load first, but on a slow connection combined with a slow computer it looks as if the page isn't loading and might cause someone to jump off the page. If you are interested in trying one go to: http://www.udm4.com/

I noticed that the new version of Dreamweaver (MX) actually builds drop down/fly out menus for you, but I don't know if they are truly cross-browser compatible.

I am using CSS to give the site consistency and to provide a low bandwidth sense of interactivity with the hover tag. I find that using CSS in this way can replace needless rollover images.