Since a lot of people turned in sites that dealt with web design errors, things to avoid, or tips, I thought I would go over them and compile a list of common entries and then comment on them.
*Usability and usefulness
*Clear navigation
*Readable/professional fonts
*Few images
*White space
*Good search engine
*Avoid text blocks
*Avoid distracting backgrounds and images
I think those were the biggest issues, although I would argue with some of them. Some are obviously good things to keep in mind - the clear navigation and a good search engine. Text blocks aren't a bad thing I don't think, but when there isn't any spacing it can be a pain to try and wade through. I don't mean just space between paragraphs either, although that always helps. Dreamweaver temples have this already built in so no one should have to deal with this, but spacing between the lines of text is a great way to spread the text out and not have it all scrunched together. This is actually a problem I encounter on fanfiction websites, where some poor soul doesn't understand how to space paragraphs and so has text text text all over the place with no breaks anywhere. I don't care how good the story is that hurts to read! Text doesn't have to be double spaced - that's probably overkill, but just a small space between lines can make all the difference if you do find yourself using large chunks of text. Spacing between paragrpahs helps too.
About the fonts...the article that was from complained about fonts like Comic Sans. Personally, I love Comic Sans. True, it may not look that professional, compared to Arial or Times or something like that. But I think that statement about fonts is too strict - it doesn't take into account the different types of websites. If your site is about maybe a kids' art project, I think Times would be a bad choice. It really depends on your audience for font, and for color choices as well.
The stuff about images, white space, and distracting backgrounds is more complicated. Few images aren't always a good sign. And while you do want some white space to separate different elements in your page, too much can be just as offputting as not enough. Distracting backgrounds...I think we went into this during our presentations of the generation websites. If the background is too interesting/distracting, then your main content will be overlooked. Unless the background has some vital detail about whatever your website is discussing, then background images should not be that attention grabbing. (In my humble opinion, that is.)
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