Is it simple, clean, and provide a <i>lot</i> of whitespace? Is it based on only a few solid colors and provide an intuitive and quick method for completing its task? If so, I like it.<p>I really buy into the whole design-for-your-product idea. I also really appreciate clean lines and a lot of whitespace. Good contrast, like tasteful transparency, can do a lot to make your site look professional as well. Most importantly, though, your site has to be useable. If you have a 4 MB background image and use MySQL with all the defaults, I don't care what your site looks like, its gonna be too slow for me to use.
I remember when David Siegel's Creating Killer Web Sites came out. It was the bomb. Full of lots of ideas and techniques for creating busy, complex, taken-straight-from-print Web pages that take forever to load.<p>Of course, I didn't quite see it that way as the time; I was thrilled to use the single-pixel hack and get my table spacing Just Right for the sliced and diced images.<p>Looking at these new site, I feel as if the designers have been given a copy of that book and fallen in love.<p><a href="http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/books/killer.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/books/killer.html</a>
Great find. In general I'm a huge fan of the style, but there are some instances where it is inappropriate, such as for GetSatisfaction. It looks very unprofessional and doesn't really sell their service very well. A website that is trying to get potential business from established companies should employ a linear website that is very easy to follow, not just an unordered conglomeration of text on a blue background.