I can't find any good articles on the subject, but I do have a few things to point out today.
I am going over the site that the previous designer designed, and I have noticed more things that need changing than I anticipated. On the surface the site looks good, but having a chance to look "under the hood" I've noticed things that I would have done differently.. as I hope most designers would.
Mistakes to look out for, if you're taking notes, are things like...
Mish-mash of code components.
The previous designer used a php navigation bar, javascript for some elements, flash for others, layout elements in CSS and in tables, all signs that the site may have just been made up as he went along. Looking at all this, it might be a miracle (or mad genius?) that the site runs at all. It can certainly run cleaner and faster (And be easier to modify in the future).
Absolute Locations with magic numbers.
It now makes sense in a dreadful sort of way as to why the footer would be positioned so far down below the content of the page. The footer (for each page!) was set at a custom absolute position, ranging at about 1500~5000 pixels from the top of the screen. None of these were formatted correctly; all seem to be at least 1000 pixels taller than they need to be.
Times New Roman Font.
A minor offense, but still one I noticed because he changed the font for each and every part of the layout to TNR deliberately. Microsoft Word abandoned Times New Roman as its default font for a good reason; any person who wants a design looking more recent than 2003 would never even touch it.
Good design practices will fix a lot of these things, and it is always good to design a website with the perspective of the person tasked to update it after you've passed on in mind.
Leaving comments for any CSS rules (why is there left padding on the third bullet in every list?) that seem ambiguous or arbitrary will prevent a well-meaning developer from changing them and panicking as they watch the site collapse into an unceremonious heap.
There is a difference between a shortcut and a clever, efficient design. Can you guess which of the two will be easily understood after you've moved on?
Keep your files tidy - Nest folders inside the site's structure to group together files that are only used locally, but don't drown someone in them if they're trying to track down the basics (main pages, common images, templates, etc.).
Construct a site map. A person just looking at your site's structure for the first time should have a good idea of what they're getting into. If there are half-finished or unconnected sites on your domain, ask yourself whether they should even exist. Going along with the previous point, it may make you come off as sloppy to the next developer in line.
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