There are many Web designs that actually work to scare people away from their sites, rather than keep people coming back. These designs should be avoided if you don't want your site to be labeled the "Worst of the Web".
Site Design Shouldn't be Scary
If your site is scary, it should be because it's about Halloween or Freddy vs. Jason. The design should help your readers get into the mood of your page without inflicting pain or annoyance. And by avoiding these common Web Horrors, you keep them returning to be scared by something else.
Black background with light, white, or pale text
Unless you're a professional designer, you should avoid this design technique. Even when it's done well, it can look pretentious, and it's VERY difficult to do well. Plus, some browsers try to print the background color - resulting in angry customers when their new ink cartridge is used up printing your page.
Black with dark text
It's illegible. All the objections to black backgrounds still apply, but now you've added in the bonus that your customers can't read the text unless they highlight it all first. This is annoying.
Tiled background images that are too busy
This is very popular with new Web page designers. They learn both how to add tiled backgrounds, and so decide to tile a picture of their cat that is 40x60. Or they just pick a background tile that is plaid or otherwise illegible. Tiled background images add to the download time, and they almost never add recognizeable value from the customer's perspective. The one exception is a wide tile (wider than your screen) to create a left-side gutter on the screen.
Everything centered
This is one of the most popular design tricks for new Web designers. Possibly because it makes it obvious that you've actually affected the design of the site. But it makes the page really hard to read. And it's often very boring looking anyway.
Too many headlines, emphasis, strong, bold, or italics
Don't have every line on your page be a headline. This gets really boring looking and your readers no longer know what is really important.
Blinking Text
Some would argue that that's all I need to say, but as I still see it on Web pages periodically, the love affair with blink has not gone away. Blinking text is nearly impossible to read. And if you do something like surround an entire paragraph with blink tags, it's like a strobe light. People don't try to read it, and unlike a strobe light, you can't even dance to it.
Lists of Links
I'm not talking about sites where you publish a link and a short paragraph describing or reviewing the site linked. I'm talking about straight lists where every line is a link. And if your link text is just the URL, then there's no reason at all for your readers to follow them. If you have to list your favorite sites on a special page, at least tell us why they're your favorites.
Cute Content
I had a friend who created a page with nothing on it. He then linked to it with the text "the end of the Web". When you clicked you got a page with nothing. All you could do was hit the back button or type in a new URL. That kind of joke might be funny to you, but chances are your visitors won't get it. (He had to explain it to me...)Too many images
This includes all those little icons that people put on their site to say that it's "built with Joe's Editor" and "runs best in IE 2.0". A rule of thumb: if you have more than 2 icons at the bottom of your page, you have too many.
Huge images
I have photos of my dog that I'd love you all to see, but I don't need to publish print-quality versions right on my Web page. And resizing using HTML doesn't count.
