Recently I was reminded of something that I find interesting: the conviction with which people can be convinced that a web site design is bad and the inability for them to put forth any concrete reasons as to why.

Just to be clear: when I say design, I mean graphical design, not information architecture.

I'm not a design person.  I like web sites to be functional.  I like to be able to find what I'm looking for quickly.  Sure, if the site is pretty I might like it a bit more, but an ugly site with lots of good content is better than a pretty site with no good content.  I'd like to think I know a good design when I see one, but clearly myopinions are different than many of those around me.

Despite the fact that I am not a designer I do know a thing or two about designing a web site and the harsh truth about good design is that it is a LOT harder than it looks.

And yet I find myself constantly talking to web content editors at work going down a path of "we want to redesign our web site" and my constant reply about how bad of an idea that is (keep in mind that most content editors are staff or grad students who have no money to pay a designer; instead they want to cut a new layout themselves and they think that a casual relationship with Photoshop qualifies them to do so).

Designing a good web site is very hard and will probably take more time than most content editors have.  Do me a favor: leave the design of you web site in the hands of a professional designer (and this is patently -NOT- me), and spend your time and effort building content instead.