For example, near where I live, someone recently posted a flier for her house cleaning service. It was on green construction paper and written with a red marker.
My initial thought was 'maybe she'll be cheap' and then 'do I want someone in my house that thinks magic marker is the proper way to make a sign for their business?'
Another example: I buy a LOT of things online. But I only buy from sites that I feel I can trust. That means they don't -look- like a scam, and they look like they know what they're doing. When I go to a site that looks like it came from 1990, I might check prices, but I -never- buy. Instead, I go back to somewhere 'safe' like Amazon and pay a little more.
Most of the examples (shoes, chairs, tables) were designed to prevent or force certain behaviors. They don't 'suck', they 'work' for exactly what they were intended.
I think you miss the point a bit. If making a design look cheap takes away from basic usability, or reflects badly on the company's core competency (your example of the red marker cleaning lady), it's a miss of course. But consider more subtle touches that may seem random to the web site visitor, but make him feel that he's not dealing with a infallible behemoth of a company. I think that definitely can help in establishing some trust when selling something that's differentiated by low price and simplified features, and competing with big brand name alternatives.
I don't think he's missing the point. "Suck" is relative to the user. If your product does exactly what the user and the owner want, it doesn't suck - it rocks. It's an awesome design. Whether it uses Comic Sans and gets snotty designers up in arms is completely irrelevant to its suckage or lack thereof.
Conveying the right expectations is a part of good design. If looking cheap is a selling point, a design that looks expensive is a failure. It's the "nice and clean" design which sucks.
For example, near where I live, someone recently posted a flier for her house cleaning service. It was on green construction paper and written with a red marker.
My initial thought was 'maybe she'll be cheap' and then 'do I want someone in my house that thinks magic marker is the proper way to make a sign for their business?'
Another example: I buy a LOT of things online. But I only buy from sites that I feel I can trust. That means they don't -look- like a scam, and they look like they know what they're doing. When I go to a site that looks like it came from 1990, I might check prices, but I -never- buy. Instead, I go back to somewhere 'safe' like Amazon and pay a little more.
Most of the examples (shoes, chairs, tables) were designed to prevent or force certain behaviors. They don't 'suck', they 'work' for exactly what they were intended.