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Always include a Flash Intro or Splash page. You need to build up peoples’ excitement before letting them in on the real deal.
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Use a lot of graphics and CSS to produce a very integrated modular page. But don’t include any means of identifying what the user is supposed to click on to get somewhere; its much more important that they hunt around so as to take it all in. (I see this all the time on high-end graphic websites. You’d think they’d know better…)
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Have each page contain an entirely different web of navigation. Never give the user a complete sense of what is available on your page. Force them to navigate through dead ends and to pages which have nothing to do with the previous page. This is done to keep the user more alert excited about what could be behind door #3.
<poking head in quick>
trig, I got a html question for you in GQ**
[sub]how do I hide the skip button on my 10 minutes flash intro?[/sub]
But put some effort into it. I saw a site with a checklist that was designed by a man who was obviously a Master.
It was a list with various options such as “check here if you’d like to receive valuable travel offers via email” and “check here if you’d like to know more about discount magazine subscriptions”. The list scrolled down with a list of options and beneath the box was a submit button.
Now so far, nothing special. But here’s the sign that the web designer was a genius. If you looked at the first few visible items on the list, you’d see they were worded like the examples I gave above - you had to check them to receive the garbage they were offering. But if you scrolled down the list to see the subsequent options the wording changed and started with items like “check here if you don’t want to be on a teen porn mailing list” or “check here if you’d don’t want us to send you ungodly amounts of spam”.
What the designer knew was that most people would only glance at the first few visible items, see that not checking them would give them the results they wanted, assume that the rest of the items worked the same way, and click to submit their response without bothering to read the list.
As I said, a work of genius.
What’s even worse than looking at a web page that sucks is being forced to design one. I know this from experience. Can you say lace background? Ewwwww!!! It’s amazing what some people think looks really good and professional.
You’re an asshole. Boomy death for you. 
It is critical that the site should only be accessable by Internet Explorer. Be sure to check and have a link for downloading I.E. if someone is stupid enough to try to access their financial information with, say, Mozilla. Also make people turn off their pop-up blockers and other security measures.
Don’t forget all the pointless <P> tags in Dreamweaver created HTML.
:mad:
Oh… and don’t forget when forcing people to listen to your midi that you should choose the crappiest version possible that will make people want to destroy every copy of a tune they once loved.
Most of what’s described here ain’t HTML abuse, but poor UI design. It’s hardly limited to webpages and Powerpoint–there are very few people out there who know how to put together a good interface for software. Mind you, there aren’t very few people getting paid for that…
Oh, and XHTML is going to be the standard somewhere down the line. Replacing two parsers with one is very appealing.
Oh yes, always make sure that your MIDI files are set to loop into infinity. Web surfers love that. And make sure not to give them a navigation bar and play controls. It just clutters up the screen and distracts from that wonderful MIDI.
“If I wanted your webpage to make sound, I’d lick my finger and drag it across the screen.”
--UnknownYou bastard!
Some helpful things I’ve discovered that you all may find useful (IE only) - clicking the “Stop” button once a page has loaded will stop any horrendous music that is playing. Also, if the person who made the page has some hideous background, selecting the text will highlight it and provide you with an inoffensive contrast between text and the space around it.
Sadly, one site I visited recently displayed most of these sins–the official Frank Zappa page, possibly the most amateurish and ill-organized of any site I have seen purporting to be the official site of a major artist.