Rules of thumb on web design

I browsed some good articles about rules of web design for reference

(1) Rules of Thumb for Web Design

(2) 10 Web Design Rules That You Can Break
Although this article is trying to stimulate reader's thought, I would conservatively stick to these rules in my design:

• Do not display the horizontal bar
• Use a minimal number of font faces
• Do not use too many colors
• Make your site's goal obvious
• Navigation should be easy to figure out
• Use different colors for text and background
• Don't put animation in the way of your content
• Stick to web-safe fonts
• Don't have a splash/landing page
• Don't use tables
  

(3) 5 Basic Rules of web page design and layout
Your web site should be......

• easy to read
• easy to navigate
• easy to find
• web page layout and design be consistent through out the site
• quick to download