Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited a common Sense Approach to Web Usability Steve Krug

Search.
Most sites need to have a prominently displayed search box
on the Home page.
Teases.
Like the cover of a magazine, the Home page needs to entice
me with hints of the “good stuff” inside.
Content promos
spotlight the newest, best, or most popular pieces of
content, like top stories and hot deals.
Feature promos
invite me to explore additional sections of the site or
try out features.
Timely content.
If the site’s success depends on my coming back
often, the Home page probably needs to have some content that gets
updated frequently. And even a site that doesn’t need regular visitors
needs some signs of life—even if only a link to a recent press release
—to signal to me that it’s not abandoned or hopelessly outdated.

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Deals.
Home page space needs to be allocated for whatever
advertising, cross-promotion, and co-branding deals have been made.
Shortcuts.
The most frequently requested pieces of content (software
updates, for instance) may deserve their own links on the Home page
so that people don’t have to hunt for them.
Registration.
If the site uses registration, the Home page needs links
or text boxes for new users to register and old users to sign in and a
way to let me know that I’m signed in (“Welcome back, Steve Krug”).
In addition to these concrete needs, the Home page also has to meet a few
abstract objectives:
Show me what I’m looking for.
The Home page needs to make it
obvious how to get to whatever I want—assuming it’s somewhere on
the site.
...and what I’m not looking for.
At the same time, the Home page
needs to expose me to some of the wonderful things the site has to
offer that I might be interested in—even though I’m not actively
looking for them.