I believe good website design is very subjective. Obviously people are getting more sophisticated and aware of what makes a good looking website, but I still believe that most people are more interested in getting straight to the information they require, and providing the website doesn't look like some 8 year old has designed it, then it still has the potential to provide a good user experience, and more importantly, give the visitor exactly what they want.
Many years ago, when I started doing web design I used a program called NetObjects Fusion which came free with a magazine, and even today I still have client websites that rank highly and get my clients new enquiries from the same websites I designed using this software. If they didn't then I would expect them to close their site or maybe find another designer. In fact, this has happened a few times over the years but I'm glad to say that most of my clients are very happy with the service.
If you're curious, then in my next post I'm going to list some of the older websites I did over four years ago and you'll see how things have changed.
