The following is a comment I posted on reddit.com last night, but I think it deserves some more play. There is are premises that a lot of people come to web design with about what a site should be, but fail to realize that the web can be so much more than their limited premise allows. I run into this all the time with clients and at work.

Here is some advice I offered to someone moving from print design, learning web design about what the web can and should be.

I think the most important thing to realize is that interactive design is a whole different discipline than print design. There will be times when you are able to use the beautiful graphics you are used to creating in illustrator, but these are secondary and are really just window dressing on top of what really matters.*

There are generally three types of websites:

Web App: This is the google type email where you are there to accomplish a task, to take some form of data and transform it into some other form of data. Most sites have some portion of them that relies on a Web App (to varying degrees), be it the CMS or the site in general.

http://www.gmail.com

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload

http://demo.joomla.org/

Content Consumption: This is the type of site, like reddit where you come to get content. The public facing side of blogs and news sites and even youtube are Consumption sites. They generally have some adherence to web standard navigation to make it very easy for the user to get around, but are allowed some leeway in order to implement a new and interesting feature.

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.espn.com

http://www.reddit.com

Experience: Experience sites are generally light on content, but rely on the interactive nature of the web to draw their audience. They have a “cool” factor, as this is where the most creative people on the web spend their time and energy, because it is the most fun for them. Experience sites generally break some usability guidelines in favor of an enhanced emotional link to the content. They are a favorite of advertising agencies.

http://www.whitegoldiswhitegold.com/

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/

http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/

When tasked with creating a new site, evaluate what the purpose of the site is, and use the best style of interface to accomplish that task.

*Really good visual design on a site can set it apart from competitors and create a feeling of quality and trustworthiness for the brand, and I am not trying to diminish its importance, in-fact I am a web designer myself. I take the content of the page, the flow of the content and the visual design into account with every piece I work on.

In other words: The web is fundamentally a guided conversation, while print is fundamentally a one-way communication.