My main points are:
- The time for overkill/flashy (not the program, the showing off) has gone, tho it may come back they are quite unpopular are can lead to a host of browser related issuse.
- You want everyone to see the same thing and to enjoy it, whether they are using IE7 Firebird saffarii etc And whatever screen resoltion (i normal design for between 800x600 and 1024x768) as a rough guide.
- What is the savy level of the people you are targeting, if you clients are well luddities etc you should have a clear, simple and almost no frills navigation, whereas if they can find the on switch to the PC you may want something a little more brazen.
Which brings me to one of the biggest mistakes designers/non designers and all manner of random people make which is:
- What is the actual core message you want you site to give, This should be clear and make people sit up and take notice, if you selling .com domains for 99p then make it a center point dont like you key focuses get detracted from by "eye candy" and stock photos.
Sorry if that seems like crap or repeats what some of the others say but its how i work with design both for the online world and offline systems.