Even while searching for innovative ways to make their websites work, new designers should follow established design conventions. These conventions have evolved along with the Internet, and users expect web pages to function in a certain way.

If there were only a few websites, designers could expect visitors to spend time learning how to navigate their sites. There are millions of pages on the web, however, and if visitors do not see what they have come to expect, they will find a site difficult to use and simply go somewhere else. Designers could lose significant amounts of traffic if they do not adhere to the design conventions that have already been imposed on websites. And no designer really wants to spend time on writing large help files or FAQs just to explain how to use a site.