Common design errors

Many people have slid into creating web pages without any training in design. A similar pattern emerged after the advent of laser printers and easy-to-use word processors. All of a sudden, many people were producing newsletters and flyers. But the result was often horrible products that experts dubbed "laser crud".

Likewise, many web page editor programs are easy to use now. But that doesn't mean that the results people churn out are automatically great. Below are some common pitfalls to avoid. In the coming weeks, I'll cover several of these in more depth.

• Poor use of white space
• Poor contrast among headlines of differerent importance
• Poor text-to-background contrast
• Grammar and spelling errors
• Too many typefaces (a.k.a. fonts)
• Image display resizing without image file resizing
• Huge images
• Distracting animation
• Too much bold or italic text
• Too many elements on a page
• Too much colored text