2. It's a good idea to specify type faces throughout your site so that your pages look same to visitors as they do to you. If you stick to, say, Times, Ariel and Helvetica you can't go wrong: everybody has these. Of course, most browsers allow visitors to override a webmaster's choice of type, so your site could still look ugly to some people. But that's their problem!

3. Never underline text, even headings. On paper underlining belongs strictly to typewriter and is regarded as bad typography. On Web it indicates a link-- unless, of course, link-underlining feature has been disabled. I don't know how many times I click on underlined text only to find it isn't a link!

4. Don't turn whole sentences into links if you can avoid it. Great chunks of underlined text are difficult to read, as well as being very ugly.

5. Use text in all capitals only for headings, and then use it sparingly. Blocks of text in capitals are difficult to read. Most headings look best with Just Initial Capitals.

Remember: If it looks ugly on paper, it looks just as ugly on a monitor.

2. Graphics: If you sell stuff online, chances are you've already developed an ulcer worrying about virtues of quick downloads vs. product photos. Well, take a look at what clever sciplus crew has done: they've used simple (but accurate!) line drawings to represent everything they sell. These little graphics take seconds to download, but customer still knows what they're in for...and I'm sure you'll agree that you would want to know what a flagellation titration flask looks like before shelling out ten bucks for it.

3. Copy: It's short. It's snappy. It's funny as hell. Let me give you an example of a product description...for tape. You'd think that describing a roll of tape would be very boring, but look what they do with it:

"Very cool tape, whether you're shipping drugs, storing diamonds, or sealing boxes of confidential records. Seal a package with this 2" wide dark-blue tape that has Investigational Drug Services Venture printed on it in light blue. Any tampering will be evident, because tape cannot be removed without leaving a dense blue stripe on surface, boldly patterned with word 'OPENED.' One roll on a 3" core is 250 ft long. Whoever woulda thought? Peace of mind from a piece of tape!"

Now, I don't know about you, but that makes me want to buy this tape. No matter what you're selling, finding a unique voice will keep users in your site. Content DOES matter, no matter what anyone says. If this tape had been described in a cold, clinical way, it wouldn't be half as appealing. I want to buy this tape partly because description made me laugh, partly due to novelty of it, partly due to fact that I can think of certain boxes I'd like to seal from potential tamperers. And lo and behold, right under this lovely description, I see order number, product name, price, and an orange link that says BUY ME. I don't have to look for an order page; my impulse buy will not be dampened by lots of clicking. If I fall in love with this tape, I click right then and there and add it to my shopping cart.

4. Order Forms: Sciplus has placed all their ordering information along top of page. Very saavy. Nothing loses a customer more quickly than an obscure, buried-at-the-bottom order form link. They also offer customers ordering options, and have coded each option with a separate color. This becomes a non-text ordering "language" for entire site. When you see that orange BUY ME! link you know that it's option number three, because it's coded orange. This makes ordering fast 'n' easy, which means they probably get lots of sales for those googly eyes, among other things.

5. Other Miscellaneous Smart Moves: They created a newsletter to update users when new products have been added to site; they distribute a printed catalog, and ordering it is a snap online; their contact info is easy to find, as are addresses of their actual stores. And entire tone of site is full of whimsy, good humor, curiosity and generosity. Sure, they want to sell you stuff-but they don't push it in your face. What they do push in your face is information you want at your fingertips.

So go into site. Play around with it, learn from it, and I'm sure you'll find other features that I haven't covered here. And while you're at it, be sure to pick up a stainless-steel pill splitter or some rechargeable sealed-lead calcium batteries.