Image courtesy of Digital Buggu.
Now, this "tiny" level of subjectivity doesn’t mean that you can’t tell good design from bad. It just means that you might find a good design "ugly" or in the other side of the spectrum, you might find something with beautiful looks but pretty bad design. Let's look at one example.
Good design helps a company take control of their brand, and shape the public's opinion to match how they want to be perceived.
The audience
If you know how the company wants to be perceived and who the design is for, the remaining question is, what is appropriate for them?
Generally speaking, the broader the audience the cleaner and more conventional the design needs to be. This happens because certain design gimmicks that will work for small niches won’t stick with a larger audience. On the other end of the spectrum, when your audience is smaller and very specific you can rely on those gimmicks to make the design attractive and engaging to them.
In short, to understand if a design passes this second check point, you just need to know what is the appropriate tone and if the design is successful in communicating it. If it is, then you’re one step closer to a good design.
So to pass this check point, you just need to understand what’s the life span of the design you’re analysing and judge it accordingly.
Is the design appropriate for it’s life span?