Of course their are circumstances where your website’s effectiveness hinges on how cool the design is, but in general, the reason to have a quality design (look & feel) is that it gives your company instant credibility – something very important when you have only parts of a second to get & keep the user’s attention.

Further thought: Checkout #3 on this usability guide from Smashing Magazine

It’s easy to find beautifully designed websites that are just plain ineffective (a browse through CSS Mania should do the trick). It’s also fairly easy to find a website that has boring design but is effective (Craiglist is world-famous for this).

So what’s an effective design?

The short answer: When it comes to a business website, the short answer is to have a website design’s look & feel be very professional – very excellent. The user should feel that you have your stuff together. Your website should make the user feel they can trust you with their time or money by giving them a professional experience.

It’s the same way with a traditional storefront. If the parking lot is trashy and loaded with potholes, the windows dirty, and the inside doesn’t feel polished, you feel this isn’t a professional store. Whether you know it or not, you’re probably doubting that you can trust them to come through like you want them to.

In the storefront example, a very unusual but beautiful store design may be nice, but most likely it doesn’t make them more effective.

The long answer has to be given for each situation you find yourself in. One recent example is a website we did for Kevin Spencer and Theatre of Illusion. Every detail aside, the user needed to tell as much by the design (look & feel) of the website as they did with the website copy – just having a professional and excellent site design wouldn’t have been as effective.

So what does this all mean?

Takeaway is to focus on what will make your website most effective and not blindly assume that incredibly unique and charming design is going to be your ticket to success.