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The Web has deteriorated. Below are three sets of desiderata for better
websites.
I would tend to commend all of these desiderata (except IndyWeb Principle 7).
Taken together, they recommend as follows:
Minimal size (less than 1Mb)
Zero to minimal Javascript
HTML and CSS so simple it can be handwritten
Content is readable on all reasonable screens and devices.
Only hyperlinks and buttons respond to clicks.
Hyperlinks are underlined and buttons look like buttons.
The back button works as expected.
View content by scrolling.
Decoration when needed and no unrelated content.
Performance is a feature.
Own your data. Your content, your metadata, your identity.
Make what you need. Make tools, templates, etc. for yourself first, not for all of your friends or ”everyone“. If you design for some hypothetical user, they may not actually exist; if you make for yourself, you actually do exist. Make something that satisfies your needs (also known as scratch your own itch), and is compatible for others, e.g. by practicing POSSE, you benefit immediately, while staying connected to friends, without having to convince anyone. If and when others join the indieweb, you all benefit.
Document your stuff. You've made a place to speak your mind, use it to document your processes, ideas, designs and code. Help others benefit from your journey, including your future self!
Modularity. Build platform agnostic platforms. The more your code is modular and composed of pieces you can swap out, the less dependent you are on a particular device, UI, templating language, API, backend language, storage model, database, platform. Modularity increases the chance that at least some of it can and will be re-used, improved, which you can then reincorporate. AKA building-blocks. AKA "small pieces loosely joined".
Longevity. Build for the long web. If human society is able to preserve ancient papyrus, Victorian photographs and dinosaur bones, we should be able to build web technology that doesn't require us to destroy everything we've done every few years in the name of progress.
Plurality. Embrace a diversity of approaches & implementations.
Have fun. When the web took off in the 90's people began designing personal sites with tools such as GeoCities. These spaces had Java applets, garish green background and seventeen animated GIFs. It may have been ugly and badly coded but it was fun. Keep the web weird and interesting.
(This article incorporates the headings from an article by David Copeland and released under CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA, and text made available under CC0 by IndyWeb)