My standing is that content is key, you can have a site with amazing content but looks blah and still get tons of visitors. Don't get me wrong I believe a nice clean looking site is important and having it look amazing will help keep people coming back but content is always the key in my opinion to a great site.

examples, 4guysfromrolla.com, w3schools.com

I you use those top 2 site quite often, design is blah but their content is great.

I want to know what you think. What's more important to you when developing a site, "Content" or "Graphics"

Content, always Content. You could have the best design in the world but if your content is mediocre then why would anyone want to come back??

However if your site is a portfolio site that is designed to bring in customers rather than users then there is a case for style above content.

Jamie

I'm assuming when you say portfolio it would be a graphics or film or artistic portfolio, otherwise I believe content would still be at the top.

Content is the most important thing. You can have the best looking website in the world, but if the content is poor then no one would want to come back.

But like Jamie says, if the website is a portfolio for your design work, then the design is slightly more important.

However, I have at times, found that I don't visit a website because the design is too much. Both the design and content was excellent, but the design was over powering the content. Does anyone know what I mean?

Content is more important than design - at least that is what SE like... although my personal opinion is that the main reason people to visit your site more than once is the design

Originally Posted by HighVoltage123

Content is more important than design - at least that is what SE like... although my personal opinion is that the main reason people to visit your site more than once is the design

Not really, the main reason I visit websites more than once is for new content. I don't go to a site and say "Wow, awesome design, I'll bookmark this" then come back in a few days and go "Wow, the design is still awesome"

Its true that if two sites have the same content and one looks better, then I might choose that one over the other but this is rarely the case. My RSS reader is packed full of sites of interests not one of them has what I would call an awesome design but the content is enough to keep me coming back day after day after day.

Jamie

Originally Posted by HighVoltage123

Content is more important than design - at least that is what SE like... although my personal opinion is that the main reason people to visit your site more than once is the design

Design does play a vital role in your website, but you shouldn't make it the most important part. I wouldn't for instance visit a website that had a orange background and red text, even if it had all the information I was looking for. But then I also wouldn't visit the best designed website in the world if it contained no information.

Design is important if you do it for your clients. But basically content is the key. Visitors love to read fresh content and this ensures return visits. So, if you ask my personal view it must be content first. But a good looking site will be an added advantage as well. I give more stress on navigation apart from content.

This is a no-brainer...content. Good design stems from good, well-organized content, and a lot of design issues (e.g. site navigation, colour scheme) relate to content as well.

Originally Posted by hamesy

Design does play a vital role in your website, but you shouldn't make it the most important part. I wouldn't for instance visit a website that had a orange background and red text, even if it had all the information I was looking for. But then I also wouldn't visit the best designed website in the world if it contained no information.

You are talking about the extremes: bad design and no content... and I was talking about sites somewhere between that... If you find a site with really professional design (great color scheme and graphics, good navigation which makes the site organized and easy to use) and contains enough information and a site with crappy design with a lot of info (extremely rich articles and everything) which you can hardly find second time because it's not well organized (but in general it looks almost alright) which site will you chose to bookmark?

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

This is a no-brainer...content. Good design stems from good, well-organized content, and a lot of design issues (e.g. site navigation, colour scheme) relate to content as well.

that is exactly what I mean when I say "site with a good design"

Ok maybe my example was extreme, but from your example, the second website. Content should come first, then the design.

ok, as I said before "My personal opinion is..." Guess we just have different preferences...

We are all individual thats what makes this place so great

You guys are perfectly entitled to my own individual opinions. That's how this place works.

The easiest case study on this is Craigslist. Here's a site with really no design/graphics and tons of good content that is doing fantastic.