Closing the barn door after the horse has escaped . . . .

This is what I get for not reading ahead in the syllabus when attempting to design my horrendously minimalist and ugly Web page for this class. But at the same time, it is good to have these two chapters to supplement what we learned on those assignments, and use it for the final project.
Tuesday's lecture highlighted the four principles of contrast, alignment, repetition and proximity. Conveniently enough, these form the anagram CARP, which is of course a kind of fish as well as the mascot for the Hiroshima-based team in the Japan Baseball League. I did get a kick out of how chapter six repeatedly made the point that they were not looking to harp on mediocre Web sites, but actually took bad ideas from some and created their own sites. Also, the chapter touched on the four CARP principles we previously discussed, but also on something hat many forget, but which has been hammered home in class: the importance of avoiding grammar and spelling mistakes on your Web site.
When chapter eight discussed how to recognize bad design, it seems like the white text on black background idea is an axiom for anyone who has read such a site on the Web. It is more difficult to read, and I usually highlight the text with the mouse to create a dark text/light background view.
It seems like a lot of the poor design principles should be commonly known among those who use the Web with regularity, which is just about everyone these days. For instance, avoiding making the reader side-scroll. I find that annoying as a reader, so that makes sense to me, like many of these ideas. Now the key is to find a way to put these ideas in motion.