These were typed from hand written notes taken by one person at the meeting, and represent comments from the expert panelists, as well as those attending the meeting. The home page should make it instantly clear to the visitor they have arrived at the expected site. First screen should be attractive, clean, display the most important statement to be made about the site, have a meaningful graphic or logo, a few words, and some navigation. Graphics should be small and fast loading. You may have DSL at home, but will be 56K in a hotel room.
Images can have a large footprint but still optimized for a small file size.
Using good navigation makes items quick to find. A site with a shallow, wide architecture will enable people to find what they want in about 3 clicks. Only use 1 or 2 fonts on a page. Make sure you know what the fonts will look on different browsers. Backgrounds are important.