Is good design necessary?

Destinations like MySpace, craigslist, and even del.icio.us have begun to make me rethink my position that design is a necessary component to a successful/engaging online site. I still contend that these are exceptions to the rule, but there seem to be enough of these exceptions to start asking the question again. Does design really matter?

As a case study, I’m listing the top 10 referrers of all time (and by “all time,” I mean 6 months) for a Web 2.0 service I know a little bit about:

1. direct request
2. stumbleupon
3. css import
4. google search
5. boingboing
6. webcreme
7. del.icio.us
8. cssmania
9. lifehacker
10. electricpulp

So forget for a minute whether or not you’re a designer. Forget about MySpace. Look at the stats purely from a business perspective, and you’ll see that every one of these referrers, save for Google (indifferent to design) and Electric Pulp (the app creator,) is influenced in some way by good design / usability. And in some very strong cases it wasn’t just an influence, it was the sole reason for the traffic.

So, back to the question: does design really matter? The answer is yes. Take away the design in this example and you’d be taking away some very significant traffic referrers.