tobyfrost — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:44:09 +0000

Mine would be content - make sure that there is something that someone will want to see...

Megan — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:06:32 +0000

Validate your code! (I can't believe nobody has mentioned that one yet )

teammatt3 — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:01:22 +0000

I've got two.

Write unique meta-descriptions and 's for every page.
Make the logo a link so it sends users to the homepage (my pet peeve).

demonhale — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:37:46 +0000

Ditto on Abhishek...
(most of my top 10 are above)

Don't ever forget to close your tags, and add alt texts to images...

Abhishek Reddy — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 21:22:36 +0000

I'm going to cheat a little and give a broad tip: know your user. In practical terms, and in general, it implies many things:

Make sure your site renders properly in all your users' browsers. Testing on just one, or two, even three browsers may not be enough. Writing wholly valid, standards-compliant code may not be enough. Take the extra step of knowing just who visits and what they see of your site.

Don't rely heavily on Flash or Javascript or even CSS on the assumption that most users' clients have these capabilities. Make your site accessible to those who don't, by offering alternate means of reaching information, or having pages degrade gracefully.

Listen to users who report major faults. Don't shrug it off just because it appears to be one corner case in isolation. A good rule is to imagine when one user complains, that there are 10 others with the same problem who didn't care to speak up.

And so on.

Of course, if you can be sure that you won't have to cater for certain clients, types of user, or processes, then you may well break those rules. But still, you'd have to know your user.

Megan — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:39:36 +0000

And don't assume that people know to click on the logo to get back to the home page.

Further to renegade's point - it might be a good idea to set the default background colour in your browser to something other than white so you're sure to notice fi you've forgotten to set a background colour. You could just do this in your test browsers if you don't want to mess up your regular browsing experience.

Brooke — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:14:26 +0000

Add a 'home' button to your site. I don't always go to the home page when I do a search - but I may wanna go home. Don't make me change the url - just have a quick link!

Renegade — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:21:45 +0000

Use a background colour! I am continually surprised by the number of people who either forget to add one or think that it automatically defaults to white if not set - this is not always the case!

Different browsers are set to different background colour defaults (mine is grey), so be sure to set it, even if it just plain white.

andy206uk — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:10:22 +0000

Learn typography... something is simple as changing the line-height on text and use the right colour can make text so much more readable and lets face it... if no one can read what's on your site, nobody is gonna hang around!

Megan — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:03:42 +0000

Oh, there are so many I could share! Here's a good one though:

Take some time to write up some goals and/or objectives for your site before you begin. This will help to keep you on track throughout the design and development process.