A handful of basics

There are some rules of thumb ("heuristics" for you fancy types) for designing with usability in mind that are helpful to remember. These are some of the things I try to keep in mind:

• People don't read
  They really don't. Sure, they'll read your blog if it's a topic that interests them, but on your marketing site, keep your text concise and support it with other visual clarity. People love to look at imagery and photos, but they will only scan snippets of your text until they find the one thing that interests them.
  
• Make your text readable
  When your visitors do read, they want it to be easy. Use medium-to-large fonts, use high contrast (no light gray on white, please), and don't use jarring color combinations, like red text on a bright green background. Also, avoid caps - we read based not just on letters but on shapes too, and all-caps denies us this.
• Don't use "splash" pages on websites
  Hoo boy is this a big one. No one, I repeat no one, wants to watch your fancy flash intro to your site. Visitors are there to get information, and all this does is slow them down.
• Less is more
  Is it vital? If not, get rid of it.
• Good-looking does not equal good
  Very pretty sites can be horrible to use. Ugly sites can be easy to use (hello, Craig's List!). Ideally you can be both visually appealing and usable, but never assume they go hand in hand.
• Separate personal taste from your customers' taste
  This is so hard to get past -- we want things to look and act in ways that meet our individual tastes. But if you're creating something for a particular audience, make sure it appeals to them -- not necessarily to you. I once watched a project that involved a camp brochure aimed at kids go from being bright, colorful, and fun to plain, conservative, and "elegant" in order to please some boardmembers. Wrong move. What appeals to 13 year olds and 53 year olds is going to be very different.
• Be scannable
  When creating lists, particularly in navigation, keep them left-aligned, and make each line start with the most key word. For example, on a site that lets you register copyrighted material, don't start each line with "Register Your Song" or "Register Your Album." Change that to "Song Registration" and "Album Registration" -- the leading word now carries more value and is easier to scan in a vertical list.