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Whether or not your site is aesthetically pleasing should be one of the last things you think about when you think about making the best possible website for yourself or your organization.

Sixty-seven years ago, Maslow proposed the idea of a psychological hierarchy of needs for humans: first physiological needs like breathing, food, water, shelter; then safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and finally self-actualization needs. In order to be stable, one must meet the needs on the lower levels of the pyramid before realizing the higher levels. Maslow’s hierarchy has faced plenty of criticism over the years, but when applied to design, it is tremendously accurate.

Functionality before Reliability. The design of your website has to meet basic functional needs even before being able to perform consistently. Later on, Usability comes in to play—making a site easy to use. Creativity is actually one of the last aspects of design—if you don’t have a useable, reliable, functional website, it won’t matter how beautiful it is—it won’t be a reliable place for your constituents to be.

Full story and plenty more about the design hierarchy at Smashing Magazine.

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