Guidelines

• Be clear on what's being presented to the user.
• Design a site that's appropriate for the audience.

• Choose a theme that's consistent with the logo of the company or organization.
  
• Put the visual emphasis on the important parts of the page.
• Aim for visual balance (comparable to weight balance on a seesaw, with large items weighing more).
• Maintain a consistent theme for the site as a whole.
• Provide consistent navigation for the pages.

• Limit the number of color hues to 2 or 3.
• Limit the number of fonts to 2.
• Avoid using Java applets.
• Avoid Flash files larger than 1 MB.
• Use Flash only when appropriate.
• Use frames only when appropriate.

• Test the site on a variety of web browsers.
• Aim for pages that look good at both high and low resolutions and color depths.
  
• Optimize the images.
  
• Avoid using images with jagged edges.

• Aim for 30-40% white space on the pages.
• The top 4 inches of each page -- the header -- should contain the most important information.
• Narrower columns make it easier to read paragraphs of text (similar to newspaper layout).