The other thing to note is that younger generations have begun to add their numbers to the web audience, and if MySpace is any indication, these users value customization over good graphic design - they’d simply rather do it themselves, good or bad as that may be.

To someone who can’t see the value of design, there’s no convincing them. My background is in publishing and I’ve watched sites slowly become clones of each other over the last 5 years. At this point the only design on the Web is happening on advertising websites and the more self-indulgent content sites like nationalgeographic.com.

I’m hoping that the trend will change as broadband takes over and there is less and less to distinguish one website from another. As Vincent says, competition may bring back “cosmetic” design as they called it at one publisher I worked at.

Second, even if you deliberately don’t think about your site’s personality during the design process, you will end up with one anyway. The colors, content, and visual elements (or lack of all three) of your Web site all make an impression on your audience, intentional or not. Therefore, it is in your best interests to be aware of the personality you are creating for your site and make certain it is telling the story you want.

Many sites with a poor visual presentation remain popular on the merits of their content alone. But does their audience enjoy bumping through the site’s awkward graphics and hard to read labels? No, but the personality of the content (it could be high quality, funny, worthwhile, and more) makes the rest bearable. Would their audience be happier if the personality of the presentation matched the personality of the content? Of course. They like the content, don’t they? Such a site would be well served to improve their presentation. Not only would it enrich their current customers’ experience, but a presentation that reflects the site’s content would tell the site’s story to newcomers as well. Hey, we have quality content, come take a look.

I’ve worked for a company that design products, and one of their markets was and still is designing housings for machines (weaving machines, machines that do laser cutting, etc). Products, in a sense, that do not need any design (the aesthetics part of the design spectrum I mean). Yet, all weaving machines, at a certain point, start to be as fast as eachother, and as cheap as eachother (well, almost). And to differentiate, some companies started to ask the company I worked for to design housings. Mostly a metal or plastic plate or 3. But it made them look different from the competition.

And in some cases, such jobs came from high-end companies. In that case, it was also a way to differentiate, but from the crowd.