Philosophy

• A web site should be clean, easy to read, and easy to navigate.
• For functional elements, it's best to stick with accepted standards — navigation on the left or top, underlined links in blue, etc.
• Simpler is better. It's easy to be seduced by tricks and gimmicks, but things like Flash, JavaScript, and DHTML are best reserved for when they serve a real purpose.
• Use CSS for formatting and layout whenever possible, except when an HTML tag like <b>, <strong>, <i>, or <em> is more appropriate. Use existing HTML tags where appropriate — e.g. <h1> rather than <div class="header"> — and style them with CSS. Class names should always be functional not descriptive — e.g. "highlight" rather than "redtext". If you turn off the style sheet, the page should still be readable.