It's the same thing as with the chunks of information - who are your target audience and what do you have to do to attract them? Businesses, especially, may be very keen to put across some kind of "corporate identity", and appealing to different markets through your design is a crucial part of this. This is mainly why I chose the web site of The Sun as one of the examples earlier. Contrast it with The Guardian - not only are they clearly appealing to different audiences but they also reflect the design and style of their "offline" selves, that is, the actual newspapers. There are no generalisations to make here. The only way you truly know if you've got the design right is through feedback. Do ask people what they think of your site, how easy they found it to use and how pleasant it was to look at. Very few of us get it right first time - but that's what learning is. Ask for feedback and act on it - if the criticisms are fair! | 
