To sum up what makes good web design.

In my opinion to what makes a good, functional website layout.

1. An aesthetically pleasing layout. Apply all good basic design principles here. Most importantly, using nice colour combinations/choices that are easy on the eyes. No harsh colours like a flurescent pink with a snotty green please.

2. Easy navigation: you should place the links where visitors will be able to find them, not hidden away to the side, somewhere way down the page in a little font size.

3. Good text sizes: Now if your site has lots of written content, don't put it at a small size like this that's hard to read. If you're lucky, visitors will at least read the first sentence, but will then move onto another site . Headers should be big and clear, same with the main navigational links.

4. Quick loading: No one wants to waits for a webpage to take ages to load! Us humans will simply click the 'x' button on the top of the page because we have better things to do than wait all day for a flash/image intensive website to load!

5. Consistent page design: Why? So we know we're still at the same site; don't have to wait for more layout images to load, and don't get confused as to where the navigation and content is placed.