What is a "good" design

What is a good design?

I know what my perspective is, I would be curious as to what the general verdict is on what is a good design and what's a bad design.

I've designed a little test which will help all designers and people wanting to design a site, so they can design something people will like and not just themselves!

This is easy and won't take much time, rep will be given to those who contribute.

First, rate these designs in order of best to worst:
1) http://www.wordpresstheme.co.nr
2) http://felu.dreamhosters.com
3) http://elyme.com/wp/DarkGlamour.jpg
4) http://www.shoutdirectory.com
5) http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4091/businessblogcopytr5.gif
6) http://www.digg.com
7) http://www.diggboards.com/folio/images/VoliJax_home copy.JPG

Then, can you post:
- Country
- Age
- Gender

You don't have to if you don't want to, however it will help determine the differences in between countries, age and genders (such as colours, readibility etc.)

Also if you could talk about what your thoughts on the designs it would be appreciated aswell!

I think the results will be interesting for everyone to view.

Thanks

 

Normally I would want to rate each page twice... First on aesthetics, second on coding. They are two distinct and separate things both of which are important to a consistant browsing experience... unfortunately being some of these are just pictures, I cannot rate on the second category.

So... Aesthetics - Listed worst to best

darkglamour.jpg So many google ads most users won't visit more than once since they can't find the content. Anything approaching content is pushed off the page - /fail/

shoutdirectory.com Visually everything EXCEPT the content looks good here - that's not a good thing. Being 'just another crappy list site' is one thing, but the lists are poorly organized partly from lack of whitespace and partly from the use of centering. The white background on the content ruins a template that shows potential... It looks like content slapped atop a template any old way, not a fully integrated site.

wordpresstheme.co.nr Nothing says 'crappy wordpress template' like a banner that takes up a third the screen at 1024x768 and is useless to 800x600 users. As is typical with "Hey look, another stock wordpress install" it makes poor use of available screen space, especially in light of being a fixed width design. The use of color is inconsistant across the page making it functional, but nothing anyones going to rant and rave for.

dreamhosters.com The page itself says it... Just another wordpress blog. The fixed position background with transparancies chokes browsers on lesser hardware, especially Opera and IE. Color-wise it's tasteful, but it uses that STUPID 'indent with a block next to it' for blockquotes - something that never looked right to me.

Digg I hate digg, have since day one. To me it fails on usability due to my patience... If I click on a link to an article take me to the article, not your crap intermediate page that links me to a page that links me to a page that MIGHT link me to the article... and fails on appearance because frankly, it's one step away from HTML default - while that type of stuff works for google, here it's just pathetic. Combined with the goofy pastel beige and fixed px sized fonts WAY below the 'usability minimum' of 12px, it's a total /fail/ that I do not get the appeal of.

Volijax reasonably clean layout, but more division between elements would go a long way on usability... on that same note some things - the featured article, the menu up top, and the logo chew entirely too much screen. I'd shoosh the menu right and move it up right under the search, push the featured article right to move the right column with the 'about us' text up, and go for a bit more contrast on the blues between the articles. In general I'd off a lot of the pastels for a bit higher contrast - they are a bit too... how can I put this politely... California? for my tastes.

businessblogcopytr5.gif This seems to be the least objectionable of the examples. If you are going to have advertising, place it to one side so it gets in the way of neither site navigation nor content. People SHOULD be visiting a page for content, so a thin header and navigation not halfway down the page is the order of the day. From a color point of view it could use a little pizaz... and it does look like 'just another crappy blog', but it wins on accessability.

Dublin, NH USA
38, Male.