63 people says things!

1. I think the issue is not “ugly” or “pretty”… it’s good or bad.
   So often people think design means looks… design is so much more.

   Graphic Design is about the functionality of looks… design is about functionality… laying out ideas to lead to a solution to a problem.

   By Joe Louis on March 27, 2006 12:50 pm

2. Craigslist, Ebay and MySpace aren’t successes because of their horrible design, but in spite of it. Design is not the one and only factor determining the success of a website.

   Scoble is, quite frankly, clueless on this subject. I don’t believe he didn’t change the font to save a couple of bytes of CSS (I mean, how about that title image?), it’s probably more like he does not have a sense of style at all. I’ve noticed that most people who don’t have a sense of style will actually not pick a font (but will smack the “design” up with title graphics and crap like that).

   By Tomas Jogin on March 27, 2006 12:54 pm

3. That’s a point brought up at the Disambiguity article I linked up. There are two types of design: Information and Visual. It seems you can survive by not being the best at the visual, but if you mess up with the informational you don’t stand a chance in hell of being successful.

   By Scrivs on March 27, 2006 12:54 pm

4. Good points Tomas. With regards to font selection I ask for header suggestions here so maybe you could help me out some.

   By Scrivs on March 27, 2006 12:56 pm

5. One common thread I see between most of these articles purporting that “ugly design” works is they imply that design and style are the same.

   Piggybacking on Joe’s point above, this is certainly not the case. If your litmus test for good design is “How pretty is it?”, you’ve a long maturation process through which to pass before you understand what design truly is. Style is about “looks” – it’s the superficial skin of the site. Design is how those looks function – do they effectively and successfully get the user to the information or product they need?

   Lastly, presuming that Google, eBay, et. al. succeed *because* of their ugly designs breaks one of the base tenants of logic – correlation is not causation. It’s simple to assume that because Google has no particular stylish appeal that “ugly design works”. Google is ugly. Google is successful. Therefore ugly must be successful. Wrong. Google lacks style. But it does not lack effective design. In fact, could there be a better design for a search engine than a page with a simple input box and a submit button?

   By Mike on March 27, 2006 1:38 pm

6. Here was my point (got inturrupted while posting it):

   Graphic design is more reliant on reactions and goals than pretty pictures. I’ve seen sites with little or no graphics that look great (whitespace for instance)… or expand that idea to other media… books for example. Certain books have really amazing typography… while others fail so badly as to distract from the message.

   If something is designed well visually it will be pleasing to they eye (“pretty”). If it is poorly design then it will fail in it’s goals and look “ugly”.

   In school people referred to us (graphic designers) as “people who made pretty pictures all day”. I’ve even heard similar exclaimations in the business world… but it’s simply not true… it’s way more involved than that. The people who actually make pretty pictures all day are called “Artisists”. A graphic designer is not truely an artist.

   Art is abstract and can be considered good without following specific guidelines. Design on the other hand must stay within certain boundaries to be considered good.

   am i making any sense here at all?

   By Joe Louis on March 27, 2006 1:47 pm

7. Mike: EXACTLY!

   By Joe Louis on March 27, 2006 1:48 pm

8. To make matters worse, I find eBay and Craigslist to be of terrible functionality…

   One (of several) examples for eBay. My eBay is supposed to be your personal eBay homepage. However, there is no link from a My eBay page to directly list something for sale. You have to physically go back to the home page and hit “sell”. Everytime I use Craigslist, I feel like their development group is intentionally ignoring features that would enhance the user experience. Defaulting to the location you’re coming from, for example. A more sophisticated communications mechanism to stop the S/N ration of international scammers….

   But I guess when you’re king of the market there’s less incentive to improve yourself.

   By Alex Hutton on March 27, 2006 3:16 pm

9. I have to agree with Alex. Craigslist and eBay not only have poor visual style, they are also poorly designed (in the non-style sense of the word). And, neither is a success because of it, but in spite of it.

   By Tomas Jogin on March 27, 2006 3:24 pm

10. These places that are popular are that way because of community. Not because of usability or design.

    A friend of a friend says “check out xyz.com website, you can create a free account, upload music, blog, show your pictures, etc… and add friends. It’s great.”.

    Somehow, someway, there is mass marketing about the products/services of these companies (whether its pamphets, blogs, word of mouth or whatever, and that is how places like myspace become so g’damn popular, even though they look like shit.

    Both services provide something to the community, sometime the community feels is very useful.

    Someone along the way felt building a website that allowed others to post certain job credentials and to help others get jobs, sell things, etc… thought it was great for Craigslist.

    There was a demand, and they nailed it. Same goes for Myspace. There was a demand for features it offers, and it nailed it.

    People need to let go of the idea that if they design someone really nice or give it awesome usability, that the visitors will flock in.

    If it’s your blog you are promoting, why should thousands of people flock to it?

    If its a service your providing, what is it about your service that feeds a niche?

    I hear a lot of people make comments (myself included at one time) that if I designed my sites crappier, maybe I would get more readers.

    It just doesn’t have to do with design.

    I do have a BUT in this whole posting.

    These places like Myspace and Craigs list, now that they are popular, should consider tweaking their designs to make them more friendly. Most likely there won’t be a giant backlash among the communities, but maybe there would be.

    By Bryan on March 27, 2006 3:35 pm

11. Oh, and getting mentioned on major news networks (fox news, CNN, etc…) sure helps their cause :)

    By Bryan on March 27, 2006 3:36 pm

12. Craigslist is successful because it is rich in content not graphics. Which is what it’s clientele wants. This has nothing to do with taste but since you brought it up. I happen to like Craigslist just the way it is. You seem like a bozo.

    By Fellow Webster on March 27, 2006 4:00 pm

13. Have you seen the latest ok-cancel?

    By Samuel on March 27, 2006 4:14 pm

14. Simple as form follows function. A website providing a complex service to the user need not be “beautiful”, in fact if the design is too distracting it can actually be a detriment. Conversely, a graphic design firm couldn’t get away with a design like Craigslist because part of the function of said website is to demonstrate the visual design abilities of that firm. So there’s no blanket trend here of ugly design taking over. I just see more sites getting better at meeting their intended purposes.

    By Mr. K. on March 27, 2006 4:18 pm

15. Wow, what a distorted idea of what design is all about…

    I guess right now he’s driving his sweet-ass Pinto since it’s all anti-marketing and cool. No? Hmmm…

    By P.J. Onori on March 27, 2006 4:24 pm

16. So i see an article on digg about webdesign
    I take a look and what do i find
    2/3 nothingness and the uglyest banner i’ve seen in ages (iconbuffet)

    Ok Ok the nothingness would be nice if i were looking at it at a normal 1278×1024 res at 1680*1050 waste land…

    By Kro on March 27, 2006 4:24 pm

17. You’re right. This “whitespace” design is pretty ugly.

    By Bill O' Reilly on March 27, 2006 4:30 pm

18. As others have said, its not just about design, its about functionality and simplicity. Also having something someone wants is a plus!

    By WoW Gold on March 27, 2006 4:32 pm

19. Depends on what you want to sell. Back in my days as a developer for an online porn company, we would build sites that were really polished and they would generate lots of traffic but few sales. The “rough” ones generated sales like crazy…

    I suppose this could lead the the assertion that the general population relates to something, hmmm…approachable? Google is an example of design that is very simple, not polished at all. They seem to be doing okay. ;-)

    By Douglas Clifton on March 27, 2006 4:41 pm

20. Again,
    Most hear are spending too much time focusing on “design” as in pretty colors and big logos. Craiglist, Ebay, and most certainly MySpace can use a facelift. I am not talking more graphics but a better sense of usability and function/ features.

    The truth is a site like Craiglist is what it is- just because that’s what was done. What I mean by that is the simplicity doesn’t even seem intentional but presented that way because that is all the developer knew to do. Sure it’s a no thrills to the point design. Great. Great when Craig and his 10 friends were using it. Al this point there should be some concentration on the users and on cleaner and more assessable code.

    A site like MySpace is the biggest neglect to the users. For all the user base, the advertising money, and the millions they received in investment there is absolutely no excuse for the lack to usability on that site. ANY Myspace user would love the site to load faster, have easier access to core functions, have advertisement banners cut to a tolerable amount. This is neglect on the site owner’s part. Why change if you are successful? It’s like when you go to a Walmart and the lights in the “M” are out so it says, “WAL ART”. A multi-million dollar company that can not have someone change a few light bulbs. Why bother… they are still a multi-million dollar company without the M. that attitude is what runs most successful “ugly” designed sites.

    By cpawl on March 27, 2006 4:42 pm

21. I think good design definitely plays a role in the success of a website. Why did MovableType beat out Blogger and Userland, they had the best looking templates. Obviously Google thought design was important as well, that’s why they hired some of the top talent out there to redo all the Blogger templates.

    By Wes Carr on March 27, 2006 4:45 pm

22. I think he knows what he is saying: just compare Microsoft and Apple in terms of beauty and their marketshare.

    By Felipe on March 27, 2006 4:45 pm

23. “In all comparisons it’s easy to pinpoint why ugly may win over good, but is there ever a case where all things are equal and success comes down to the design of the product?”

    Apple’s iPod is more expensive, has fewer features, and less capacity than many other MP3 players on the market. Yet, it is the dominant MP3 player. I think most would agree that this is because of the design of the product.

    By Jake Boxer on March 27, 2006 4:49 pm

24. Tomas has the right of it. These sites succeed in spite of poor design. However, we need to clearly differentiate between ugly and poor or bad. A “pretty” design could be a bad design and an “ugly” design could be a good design.

    MySpace is an example of an ugly design that is also a poor, or in this case damn near unusable, design…Sure lots of people use it, but you can’t tell me that it’s easy to use. It’s got a huge learning curve and you really have to work it to get to where it’s usable.

    It’s telling how much free time some people have…

    But it’s successful despite that. For now. Is there room for a well designed MySpace killer? Heck yes there is. Could MySpace be even more successful if they had a better design? I certainly think so.

    You can succeed with an ugly or poorly functioning design on the Web today. That’s all you need to note with this stuff. However I highly doubt that’ll be the case forever.

    By Keith on March 27, 2006 4:56 pm

25. Howdy all,

    I’ve been involved in thousands of usability and design tests for http://www.bizrate.com and http://www.shopzilla.com

    And while ugly vs. pretty is very subjective, I CAN tell you that design makes a difference. We’ve started testing things like font and color, and they both can have big impact. Larger font sizes, of course, allow for better readability so the fact that they win over smaller font sizes is more of a functionality item, but even testing Arial vs. Verdana made an impact on revenue.

    Visual clutter seems to lose pretty regularly over more whitespace. And visual quiet tends to win over visual noise. For instance, any time we try to highlight an area with color to draw attention to it, it backfires and gets ignored. Maybe people think it’s an ad.

    However, ours is all research within a specific context. Myspace’s goals are different than ours, so I imagine their findings would be different as well. I’m told, however, that they don’t do any testing of different layouts, whatsoever. People I know who’ve worked/interviewed there say the owner has disdain for the idea of testing anything at all. They just build something and launch it. My own experience here at Shopzilla says that even after five and a half years of heavy testing on the same sites we still are occasionally surprised by results. So I don’t believe Myspace could possibly be completely on target with all of their designs. I’m certain they could use refinement if not total overhaul to increase their success.

    After watching hundreds of shoppers click from our sites to merchants’ sites, I’ve seen many turn right back around if they felt a store’s website looked “unprofessional”. However, professionalism in the look of a store may be more important than on a user-generated content site, since a store’s goal is to take your money.

    Lastly, I’ve heard several users say they liked the look of clean, well-designed sites with helpful pictures, well laid-out text and lots of white space, but I’ve NEVER EVER heard anyone say they liked the look of a site that appeared visually messy.

    The call for an apples to apples comparison is a good one but, unfortunately, even if you could find two sites with the exact same page flow, and goals but with different aesthetics (one commonly believed to be messy and one commonly believed to be pretty) you’d never be able to prove the success of one over the other without knowing other key measures like how good their search engine optimization and marketing prowess is. The only true way to answer the question is to A/B test different layouts simultaneously on the same website.

    By Laura on March 27, 2006 5:01 pm

26. As Douglas mentionned, pretty design doesn’t generate sales, but appropriate design does.
    Before taking a look at the eBay site, just think of what eBay means to you. When I think about eBay, I think about cheap products, garage sales, used items, and so on.
    Their design style is cheap – just like products they sell, in this way, it’s appropriate.
    Have you ever tried to organize a garage sale in a Tiffany&co – like place ? I’m not sure people would get in because they’d think that, if the place looks pretty, clean, “rich”, then products must be expensive.
    Google’s design is appropriate in the way that it makes things simple. For new google users (are there any ?) the simplicity leads to an easy understanding on how the site works. For experienced users, the simplicity make us go faster. The design fits everybody’s needs and thus is successful / appropriate.
    Not sure if this is clear… :-/

    By Tim on March 27, 2006 5:06 pm

27. I agree with Keith here above, these sites do succeed in spite of poor/ugly design. 3 scientific experiments all confirm that “attractive things work better” just check out http://www.sigchi.org/chi97/proceedings/paper/nt.htm or Donald A. Norman book “Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things” where he talks about the experiments that prove this. I would like to see those arguing that ugly design is good provide some facts :)

    By Thor on March 27, 2006 5:19 pm

28. its not about design its about money and if you want a site that anyone can use that owns a credit card it needs to be simple and crap.

    By jme giffo on March 27, 2006 5:22 pm

29. Noam Tractinsky, an Israeli scientist, was puzzled. Attractive things certainly should be preferred over ugly ones, but why would they work better? Yet two Japanese researchers, Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura1, claimed just that. They developed two forms of automated teller machines, the ATM machines that allow us to get money and do simple banking tasks any time of the day or night. Both forms were identical in function, the number of buttons, and how they worked, but one had the buttons and screens arranged attractively, the other unattractively. Surprise! The Japanese found that the attractive ones were easier to use.

    Reference http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/CH01.pdf

    By Thor on March 27, 2006 5:40 pm

30. I’ve read that the appeal in MySpace’s design layout is the chaotic nature of the space. I see how it plays into it, but don’t agree if it’s successful because of it, rather what you’ve pointed out above.

    By Big Dogs on March 27, 2006 6:00 pm

31. “Depends on what you want to sell. Back in my days as a developer for an online porn company, we would build sites that were really polished and they would generate lots of traffic but few sales. The “rough” ones generated sales like crazy…”

    Heheh. The porn industry proves it! Seriously, though– who else but the people who generate hundreds of spam sites are qualified to comment on which is more effective?

    While design and usability aren’t mutually exclusive, they aren’t exactly compatible either.

    By Tony wright on March 27, 2006 6:23 pm

32. Scoble’s post pissed me off, too, becuase of the exact point Mike made: correlation is not causation. As Alex H. also alluded: if your site is already widely popular and used by nearly everyone, well, what incentive do you have to make it prettier/faster/better? That’s why MySpace will never (need to) be pretty.

    By Devin on March 27, 2006 6:54 pm

33. As a search spammer, I can say conclusively that bad-design works, at least for making money. The uglier sites (broken images, almost all text, poor colors, etc.) get far greater CTRs than attractive sites – and over the lifetime of a spam site, that is often a $800-1200 difference

    By BelieveSpammer on March 27, 2006 6:56 pm

34. Wow, I this morning I read one of these dumb articles about success and design and I thought, “I wonder what Scrivs will say about this?”

    I’ve been meaning to write about this myself but let me say a few things here. This whole uproar started because plentyoffish.com reported that they made a boatload of money off of Google adsense. It’s a hideous site but obviously successful in earnings. Someone wrote an article early on and posed a good possibility… maybe it’s so ugly that people immediately click an ad. Plentyoffish.com is a dating site and the ads are right at the top linking to other dating sites… and you can see how they spam search engines in their content, so it’s obvious that it is exactly what they are doing.

    So that’s where this whole thing started and it has nothing to do with design being “ugly” or “pretty.” It’s about having a horrible information architecture that actually funnels your viewers into clicking on your ads. A lot of sites do this and while it may be lame it obviously pays off.

    Besides, all their visitors are lame desperate singles who don’t care what the site looks like as long as it gives them the slightest chance of meeting their next date.

    As far as big sites like Google/Ebay/Craigslist, we’ve known for years that these sites are successful because of the service they offer and nothing else. There’s no need to bring them up again because they are successful in spite of their design.

    Finally, it comes down to what the content is (when we are talking about whether or not the site needs to be well designed). If you’re content is “all your friends from school” (MySpace), “hundreds of cool free videos” (YouTube), or something cheap like that, then your site sells itself regardless of the design. But for the rest of us, who have clients who really need a pretty page and great IA to convince their visitors, we know better. More often than not, good design is a must-have. And even if not, it never hurts.

    By Christian Montoya on March 27, 2006 7:06 pm

35. Somethimes I wonder if some of these authors/designers/users realize how poorly made some of these layouts are. Then again maybe it’s the fact that they had made them, but most are just layouts that they got of the net by doing a search. But I do give some layout sites credit for nice looking easy to read layout, but some are just unreadable.

    By BJW on March 27, 2006 7:09 pm

36. Ugly vs. Pretty? It’s easy to make ugly win, just let a
    bunch of kids straight out of art school, and a bunch of
    L337 CSS design hackers decide what is “Ugly” and what
    is “Pretty”.

    Simple site designs using stable techniques will be
    classified as “Ugly” becuase they are not “Stylish”.
    Complex site designs that are full of unintended
    mysteries (how do I get to the page I want to see?),
    and have loading or rendering problems because of
    proprietary extensions, too many plug-in calls, huge
    graphics files, etc., will be classified as “Pretty”.

    Once you have sorted them this way, it’s a foregone
    conclusion that sites categorized as “Ugly” are, in
    every practical sense, “better”.

    QED.

    By Steve on March 27, 2006 7:12 pm

37. Let’s not forget that credibility is also in the eye of the beholder:
    http://www.uxpdesign.com/fsbrainstorm/more.php?id=859_0_1_0_M

    By Francis Wu on March 27, 2006 7:18 pm

38. It appears that the the idea of beautiful is simplicty. I am a fan of simplicty and other modernist designs. Ugly usually is usually cause by unorganized sharp boxes, as well as over populated pages with information that is impossible to manage. The best way to overcome this is through multiple simple pages. I have used this idea of design with my webpage.

    By Joe B on March 27, 2006 7:42 pm

39. MySpace is successfull, because its bad taste for people with bad taste. Unfortunately, in terms of numbers, bad taste dominates good taste.

    If you want to appeal to audiences with various tastes: Be abstract. Craigslist eBay & Co don’t have bad design. They’re just abstract.

    Also, MySpace individual pages are not successfull. Myspace has a big audience as a collective, the individual pages don’t. But the individual pages have a highly dedicated target audience (friends).

    By Oliver Reichenstein on March 27, 2006 7:58 pm

40. it doesn’t matter if it’s ugly or not. just if it has wanted content.

    By hacker not cracker on March 27, 2006 8:49 pm

41. What’s this design thing everyone’s talking about? PHOOEY!

    By Rupert Murdoch on March 27, 2006 9:20 pm

42. The majority of the millions of people who use myspace, ebay and craiglist are not trained in any form of design, usability or web standards. If you are not trained in such, then how are you too notice bad design or poor usability.

    quite simply, craiglist and ebay work, despite their apparent lack of design and usability – because the people using them didnt notice the site had a bad design or poor information architecture –

    like bryan said above, these sites become popular because of the service they offer and through organic viral marketing.

    if you are dont know what usability and design is – then how can you make a judgement on it.

    By gooey on March 27, 2006 9:42 pm

43. I think a pretty good apples to apples comparison for design would be bloglines.com vs. rojo.com.

    Features are quite close, but Rojo is much more pleasant to use.

    By Torabisu on March 27, 2006 10:18 pm

44. There’s actually a design term for ugly design, it’s called vernacular.

    Wal-mart is a perfect example of vernacular, the uglyness makes people feel comfortable. Compared to Wal-Mart, Target is very pretentious; it feels manipulative or too targeted at a specific audience.

    Most people (and many desingers) can never hope to make anything that looks as good as Friendster, but the bar’s set much lower for MySpace.

    Remember Biz Markie? There’s some bad design that made it on the merits of it’s own awfulness.

    By Stu Kabakoff on March 27, 2006 10:54 pm

45. we can all be critics and discuss this amongst us web geeks all day.
    but the point is the average joe still likes meat and potatoes.

    i rather focus on the end user than satisfy my web ego to design the hottest flash over php, ajax driven, xml feed site for ipod emulators on mobile phones.

    while most might say wow, what a great idea, lets get some vc money!!! my mom and just about any non-tec person out there just simply wants to get from point a to b without all that noise.

    mind you, i think we all agree this is the winning formula for highly successful “content” driven community sites.

    By vince on March 28, 2006 12:03 am

46. But this is what http://edwardtufte.com has been saying for years, it’s all about content. Good design is good content, the rest is just eye candy. If the information is there people will use it, if not it doesn;t matter how beautiful the design, it’s totally useless and not worth someone’s time.

    By richard kenyon on March 28, 2006 12:45 am

47. Thanks for expressing your irritation with the ‘ugly design is good’ meme. I’ve been getting annoyed at it, too. Every time I read somewhere that Google is successful because of its design I just shake my head. I remember hearing about Google when it was still just a research program (I think the article was in Discover). I personally believe the major reason Google was successful in the beginning is because the name was goofy, and reassuring to the thousands of new internet users coming to the web at the time, who were a bit technophobic. I think its continued success only was a result of its superior search algorhythm. Ugly design is generally not a positive attribue, but as many people in this thread have noted, it generally doesn’t put a death hex on a usefull (or a well-promoted) site.

    By chas on March 28, 2006 6:03 am

48. * The content of this page is centered in whitespace wider than my browser window.
    * When I click on the “about” link, I’m taken to a page that–in an odd juxtaposition to the this page–has text slammed up against the edge of my browser window rather than spaced an aesthetic distance from it.
    * The page the “about” link took me to tells me nothing about the site.
    * After several minutes of poking about, I still have no clue as to the blog author’s name or psuedonym.

    Ironic.

    Joe Louis is absolutely correct. The author of this blog seemingly has no clue regarding good design. Unfortunately, his design is ugly as well.

    By Robert Fisher on March 28, 2006 3:15 pm

49. Chas you were STRAIGHT TO THE POINT!! “I think its continued success only was a result of its superior search algorhythm.”
    – Couldn’t agree more! At the end of the day it’s the users who decide who’s a great success and who get’s a thumb down and gets run over… A top notch product, that’s easy to use, and that constantly provides higher satisfaction as compared to the competition, wins at the end… you try one, two, five… but the winning product or service wins you over and you stick to it… of course at this time and age we are not really that loyal as you might think… if something better than Google, eBay, Amazon, Digg, etc. comes along you’d switch…

    By adele on March 28, 2006 4:45 pm

50. Robert: And the author of this blog PROVES HIS POINT by example. His site is successful IN SPITE OF the bad design, in that people come here for the content, not the design. Most people read it through their RSS anyway, pure content, no design. This blog really is very successful among design blogs, and like I said, it is IN SPITE OF the design, just like Craigslist Ebay & Co, because it offers content that counts.

    I hope there’s no more comments due from the peanut gallery, but if they will further prove the statements posed here, then I guess I don’t mind them :)

    By Christian Montoya on March 28, 2006 5:12 pm

51. I don’t know. My site has been phenomenally successful precisely because of its ugly design.

    Come sign my guestbook!!!

    By JD on March 28, 2006 8:42 pm

52. I am currently looking for a hosting provider and I have to say that I just TRUST a site with worse design more. Flashy (and more beautiful) sites feel like MARKETING schemes, not companies that offer good services for good price. Good design adds a feeling of high cost, which is not always good thing.

    By Mr. Khmerang on March 29, 2006 12:05 am

53. Yes, I hate the fact that Myspace.com has seen such success as it goes against everything that us designers are trying to do. I have friends that use myspace and they “love it” because they can customize their own pages. Ugh, they are so ugly. And they claim to be able to create web pages, now that they have become experts using the horrible myspace layout hacks. Its crazy, absolutely crazy. Perhaps I should make the ugliest website, with a horrible interface and see if it takes off!

    By Jake on March 29, 2006 8:50 am

54. #52 | Mr. Khmerang

    I am currently looking for a hosting provider and I have to say that I just TRUST a site with worse design more. Flashy (and more beautiful) sites feel like MARKETING schemes, not companies that offer good services for good price. Good design adds a feeling of high cost, which is not always good thing.

    –
    I COMPLETELY disagree. I feel, especially if your a hosting company, that if you can not figure out or take the time to have a professional design your website how professional are your services going to be?

    I distrust any company that does not even care enough about their own business branding let alone their customers.

    By cpawl on March 29, 2006 10:29 am

55. I tend to believe that content will always remain king, regardless of the medium. The majority of the audience is primarily concerned with content and functionality; in other words, they want information and easy access to that information. Until the world is ruled by designers and left-brainers, the audience will continue to have a similar outlook.

    On that note, however, I have found that there is a type of Catch-22 to being a designer and searching for content. Although I do not consider myself to be a great designer, I do feel that I know enough to critique design and to differentiate between what is “good” and “bad.”

    That said, I sometimes judge a site by its cover, assuming that bad design equals bad content. The more professional, visually appealing a site is, the higher my expectations are of the content found there — and vice versa.

    The meaning of life could be a click or scroll away, but if the site is ugly, I’m probably going to search elsewhere.

    By Major Highfield on March 29, 2006 12:51 pm

56. JD: Ugh.

    By Christian Montoya on March 29, 2006 10:43 pm

57. Design appeals to different tastes. Function should exist regardless of taste. MySpace exists because everyone went there. Remember VHS/BETA? Not about who is better, its about where the market went. So design snobs need to remember that design can draw people in but function makes them come back.

    By glenroy on March 30, 2006 11:01 am

58. content is king.

    By Thomas on March 30, 2006 12:13 pm

59. Ugly sites are successful DESPITE their aesthetic not because of it.

    By Nico on March 30, 2006 2:12 pm

60. Joe Louis is absolutely correct. The author of this blog seemingly has no clue regarding good design. Unfortunately, his design is ugly as well. -robert fisher

    That wasn’t my point at all so I guess I’m absolutely incorrect. Any idiot knows that Scrivs is the author of this blog and the new design is wonderful, especially considering the name of the blog.
    I totally agree with the points Paul made. Good looking design is better… I just felt it necessary to point out that design isn’t about ugly and not ugly… that simplifies it way too much. Mike (post #5) summed it up perfectly.

    By Joe Louis on March 30, 2006 8:44 pm

61. You hit the nail on the head with this issue being more about usability: a site like craigslist works because it’s so clean and easy to navigate, not because it’s ugly. And eBay succeeds despite its porr usability and molasses-slow page loads.

    But there’s another issue here: perceived cost.

    A less affluent site visitor or customer is in some cases less likely to browse a web site or shop a store they perceive to be out of their budget or that represents a cultural or socio-economic disconnect.

    For example, if I make less than $30k/yr, I’m less likely to walk into the Apple Store or a Saks Fifth Ave flagship. I’m also more likely to shop a dollar store or a less professionally-designed site. Not only do I suspect I can afford the products or services within, I expect they’re tailored to my needs and expectations. I also assume that the site owners and store staff are welcoming me.

    This is not to say that “poor people don’t visit well-designed sites” or “rich people only visit upscale stores.” While the more affluent are generally less likely to shop a shabby store or ugly web site, they will do so when they perceive a special value: a deal in a junk shop, a unique product or service offered by a web site (ie, craigslist), etc.

    While successful design for the masses will always require a balance of usability, intuitive design and broad appeal, applications of the ugly aesthetic can be very effective…and profitable.

    Take BrandSmart.

    If you don’t have a BrandSmart store in your ‘hood yet, imagine walking into a Best Buy in Tijuana: TVs, DVD players, iPods, phone, kitchen accessories, etc—every electronic device you can imagine—sloppily stored warehouse-style with huge neon “CLEARANCE” signs posted every three feet. You’re immersed in a feeling of HOT DEALS. Like you’ve walked into a pawn shop with less-than scrupulous management or a back-door, last-chance electronics surplus. You’re positive there’s a good deal in here on something you really want. Shop around, though, and you find that there really aren’t dozens of great deals—it’s mostly the same stuff and prices as at BestBuy, just designed to feel like a bargain basement.

    Having worked on web sites for several industrial manufacturers whose customers are meat-and-potatoes consumers, I’ve found that “no frills” often translates to “ugly” design for this demographic. Intentionally designing sites to look less professional or ugly—but maintain usability and a clear message—is in fact an ideal way to position companies who cater to this demographic.

    I’d argue that in special cases, the ugly aesthetic combined with an understanding of perceived cost is can be used to connote value to any audience—not just the under-compensated.

    By Jamie on March 31, 2006 9:08 am

62. After reviewing the many comments above, I’ll add this. The subjectivity of beauty does run in patterns that are “comfortable” or “expected” by demographic groups or generational segments. But good design has a lot to do with order. Because of our over-communicated society, people are generally numb to the constant barrage of mass communications: they only respond to images and messages they are interested in or familiar with. The best a designer can do is respect that fact and present the concept with as much simplicity and order as possible. The goal of great design is simply to be heard, or to be useful.

    Having said that, I can’t believe that it would ever be an admirable goal to make something ugly because the research says that’s what people want or like. I’ve never known anybody who, given the chance, would refuse to drive a Ferrari simply because it’s not as ugly as the cars they’ve driven throughout their life. Good design is thoughtful, intuitive, orderly, and sometimes just plain fun.

    Many designers often lose sight of these basic design principles and try to use every tool in their app to obfuscate the mundane nature of each project and “breathe excitement” into the pathetic lives of everybody who comes in contact with it. Thing is, if I go to the ATM, I want to get money from my account quickly, safely and accurately: My life would not be enhanced if a copywriter added peotry to the process or if a visual designer added holograms or if the industrial designer made it look like a spaceship. That stuff may make the experience more beautiful, but it’s still crappy design.

    A great designer identifies the problem simply and accurately, and solves it with style and grace.

    By Firebrand on April 13, 2006 5:21 pm

63. All this study proves is that a majority of people have bad taste in design!

    By neseus on April 13, 2006 7:03 pm

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