On: Ask YC: Do young people care about a nice visual designed websites?

[brlewis]

I think you're asking the wrong question. It isn't so much the age that matters. Ask what kind of relationship they have with your site.

Search results can look plain. Classified ads can look ugly. Someplace associated with their own identity needs to look great.

More on my experience here:

http://ourdoings.com/2008-02

[thorax → brlewis]

> Someplace associated with their own identity needs to look great.

I would have agreed with you on that until MySpace came along and showed there was less "need" even in that situation.

[brlewis → thorax]

OK, so "great" wasn't the right word. What's a word with similar meaning but conveying subjectivity?

[thorax → brlewis]

Well, I didn't actually mean it in that sense. When MySpace was getting its umpteenth million user, the site layout, fonts, styles, etc, was all amateurish and nowhere near "great". It didn't have any elegance at all anywhere.

Nowadays they've had some professionals hop in and touch up some of the core site elements. I still wouldn't call anything about it "great", even in terms of "good match for each user" because it feels more like they're just working with whatever they were given. None of the widgets/elements/profile tools they're given are 'great' on its own.

So basically MySpace shook the premise for me that quality is any sort of an essential element for success. They're probably an exception, but they're very much a huge exception.

[hooande → brlewis]

nice blog post