[pg]

Our general rule is, if you don't have any graphic design sense (and only about 10% of founders do), just make the site as sparse as possible. Worked for Google.

In at least one case (reddit), the founders had a great sense of design and yet chose to make the site sparse anyway. This was because as a news site they wanted to emphasize the information on the page and make the site itself fade into the background.

[brlewis]

I want to amplify the point about emphasizing user-supplied information. About a year ago when my alumni class started using ourdoings.com for class notes, I knew graphic design was lacking. I was surprised by comments like "the new format looks great." Then I figured out that by making the information/photos people wanted more accessible, they were more pleased by what they saw.

The design of ourdoings.com is relatively subtle, as most picture frames are, but back then it was even uglier than it is now. Nevertheless, people look at what they're interested in.