When planning your website design and overall online strategy, it is important to consider what balance you need to create between the looks, or "wow" factor and the useful substance that you provide your users. An effective way to achieve this is to create an online destination ? a site that both stands out as well-designed, unique and memorable, and that contains content that holds a user's interest beyond the first few lines of the home page.

The myth of total content supremacy.

Some writers and online commentators have argued that design is of absolutely no consequence in creating a successful website. As long as your site contains a lot of useful information, you can drive users, and therefore create ad revenues, with your site.

This view ignores the reality of the way people see and react to their surroundings, websites included. Visuals are sticky in a both positive and negative way. People will remember a well-designed site and return just as they will remember a poorly designed site and make a note to avoid it in the future.

Take, for example, a poorly designed online store. Maybe it contains just the product you need, but the menus are so confusing and the items so poorly organized that you never find what you are looking for. Or, in a more extreme case, maybe you find exactly what you are looking for, but the site itself looks so unprofessional that you are not sure you can trust the company enough to actually place the order. In this case, the image you portray, professional vs. unprofessional, can be more important than the product you are selling.

A website does not have to have a lot of bells and whistles to be well-designed, but the design cannot be ignored entirely. An overall design plan organizes your information, creates easily navigated pages, puts forth a professional image, and enhances the user experience ? increasing the likelihood that they will return or recommend you to others.

The myth of total design dominance.

There are some sites out there that are just beautiful. And, while as designers we may admire them, the problem is that they are just that ? beautiful. Beyond that, they serve no recognizable purpose. Maybe they try to, but the function is lost in all the clever navigation and showy flash elements.

One pitfall of such sites, attractive as they may be, is that they are often difficult to navigate, and therefore frustrating to the user who doesn't know what the site wants them to do. Or, too many flash elements take too long to load, again frustrating the user who doesn't have the time or inclination to wait. Or, worse, the user never finds the site in the first place because content and SEO have been completely ignored.

Chances are that if you are going to invest in a website, you want it to do something other than take up space and look pretty. Maybe you want to grow a community and build ad revenues, or sell a product or promote your services. Whatever your ultimate goal is, all of your branding and design exist to serve it. Design is only successful if it communicates.

Designers love to spend their time making good-looking sites. Maybe even award-winning sites. But we do our clients a disservice if we ignore the substance. You must strike a balance between design and function to create useful, sticky online destinations.