Quoted: Application usability is enhanced when users know how to operate the UI and it guides them through the workflow. Violating common guidelines prevents both.

redot. so true...especially the internet explorer part.

quoted: I guess this basically sums it up pretty accurately, although the 'swearing' part is probably a little bit larger in my case.

Looks helpful.

Quoted: This pervasiveness of the open source spirit in web design now means that you can use open source software to design both graphics and your CSS and HTML, and you can also use the dozens of reliable open source code resources or thousands of templates to base your own designs on. In this article we highlight 100 open source web design tools, resources, and templates.

Some good (maybe obvious?) ideas.

Quoted: Choose a colour you like, say rgb(251, 160, 206). Then consistently minus or add a value from each colour value to create other colours for the palette.

A colleague recommended this podcast. I going to subscribe to this in iTunes so it will sync to my brand new iPod Nano!

Quoted: So you are responsible for your organisation's web site. This blog and podcast aims to provide news and advice on web design and management without overwhelming you with techno babble!

This is the website of the guy who wrote "Don't Make Me Think". There is some helpful stuff here, including a sample usability test script. Also, I recommend reading the book if you haven't already.

Quoted: Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, provides consulting services including expert reviews of existing sites and new designs, usability workshops, and usability testing.

I've been really happy with this book. It is both general and specific. It is general in that in presents fundamental usability principles such as "Don't make me think". It is specific in that it gives you explicit web design recommendations.

And, he practices what he preaches...so you can scan the book in a couple of hours and get all the main points.

Quoted: The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book's assumptions, such as "We don't read pages--we scan them" and "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through." Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.

Highly recommended by a colleague.

Quoted: The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book's assumptions, such as "We don't read pages--we scan them" and "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through." Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.