consistency

Make sure you keep navigation and design elements in a consistent location
throughout the site
- Keep the logo, navigation elements, headings and common textual elements in the same position on all pages
- Helps usability because visitors will only have to "learn" where the
  position of these elements are once.
  - They will expect it to be in the same location, look the same and behave the same - if it doesn't, they will have to relearn how to use it.
    - Relearning will delay their use of your web site and can be frustrating. Frustrated visitors often don't return.
Try to keep consistent with other web sites to further help your visitors
- Many sites place their logo in the top left corner
- Another common "web standard" is to keep unvisited links blue and visited links red/purple
Keep font styles the same across the site
- Maintain this by using a style sheet
If you use color as a visual clue to navigation, keep the colors consistent
- Always provide alternative means for determining navigation clues
Links should be underlined and have consistent colors for unvisited, visited etc.
Provide a clue as to whether a link is within the site, or will take the user to a different site or a mailto link
- e.g. On this site, external links contain the full address, starting http://