[patio11]

There are many roads to the cheese. Cold calling, for example, works. I've never done it and if I suggested it to my (very successful) clients they'd laugh in my face, but it is an enormous business.

A lot of businesses can get away with terrible websites for the same reason I can get away with terrible business cards: 99.8% of the business is elsewhere. If you're Nobu your website could be done by a 4th grader in Flash and you'd still sell sushi at $100 a plate.

That's the part of the answer you won't mind hearing. The other part is designers vastly overestimate the importance of design and that what designers like about designs is in many cases orthogonal to their effectiveness in convincing customers to enter business relationships. (I'd say a variant of that regarding programmers, too.)

[adrianhoward]

what designers like about designs is in many cases orthogonal to their effectiveness in convincing customers to enter business relationships

You have there, in a nutshell, the difference between the outlook of good and bad designers.

Bad designers care about whether they like the design.

Good designers care about whether the end-user likes the design.

[derefr]

I think, more often, the dichotomy is between idealistic designers and pragmatic designers.

Idealistic designers care about whether the end-users (meaning the people who will, say, visit the website) like the design.

Pragmatic designers care about whether the client likes the design.

It's quite a bit harder to make money as an idealistic designer, unless you can wield conversion rate data at the client. If you're just one designer on a team working for an agency, who's been given a "brand policy" document by the client? No chance.

[autonoms]

I disagree with the your dichotomy. It isn't whether the end-user likes the design, it is whether the design is useful. So useful that they don't even realize "design" is taking place.

[adrianhoward]

The good designer knows how to get the client to understand that the end-user is the one who needs to value the design :-)

[Top tip - never ask the client "What do you think of X?" instead ask "What would your customers think of X?". You'll be amazed at the different kind of responses you get.]

[bmelton]

The best designers care about how the design helps you make more money or get more customers.

Should a site look good? Absolutely. It never hurts anything to look better. Can a site look ugly? Absolutely. If your business is strong enough, there's no amount of bad design that can hurt it.

The main thing though, is that more attractive designs don't necessarily convert better. People think they do, because you're turned off by ugly designs, and for sure, if you've got two sites up that share the same interface, and one is prettier than the other, the prettier one will likely win your business. But if you take those same sites, and have better copy on the ugly site, it may well convert better. If your pretty design is hard to use, it may well lose.

So yeah, if your web designer cares more about the end user or themselves than whether the design is effective, then you're paying for the wrong thing.

[thenomad]

Speaking from a strictly results-based perspective, sometimes looking better can indeed hurt some user actions. See the recent study on slick, professional ads on Plenty of Fish vs MS Paint ads.

But I'm nitpicking. From what I've seen, in 99% of cases looking more pro helps.

[billpatrianakos]

I waffle back and forth between agreeing with you and disagreeing with you as I've asked myself that same question time and time again. Right now I agree with the one caveat being that awful design can only pass when the information presented is well organized and easily found. I've seen designers changing tens of thousands for sites that look like they were built using a 90's style WYSIWYG editor measurably boost business because everything was easily found and understood despite how cheesy it looks. On the other end of the spectrum I've seen the same expensive design place so much emphasis on cool effects and be such an exercise in vanity for the designer the business got nothing from the site.

I disagree that designers place too much importance on what they do. Design is very important. The mistake designers make is not knowing when it's important. They just want to design everything whether it's necessary or not. I was going to put an analogy here but I lost my train of thought.

[adrianhoward]

the one caveat being that awful design can only pass when the information presented is well organized and easily found

Nope. Awful design survives when the users incentives for using the site outweigh the pain caused by the bad design.

I was comparison shopping for marbles this afternoon (don't ask) - several sites just got closed because I couldn't trivially see what the P&P was.

I'm traveling to the US this year. Which means I have to get ESTA authentication from the lovely DHS. It doesn't matter how fking awful that site is. I will go through the process until it works since I have no other option.

[tnorthcutt]

Right now I agree with the one caveat being that awful design can only pass when the information presented is well organized and easily found.

That's not awful design.