Designing for the audience

In general, I think good design is like good writing: it should be able to connect audience to the messages and themes of the website.
Let's say, if you are to design for your personal weblog, the first thing you need to think of is how your weblog is appearing to your parents, friends or unknown visitors who share interest with you on some of the things you are going to write. Most importantly, you want to show your personality to these visitors of your website, without overwelming them with all sorts of distractions.
When designing a general news site, media organization should keep their audience in mind: they are not going to be able to see every link to the massive amount of content. Perhaps it is helpful to think of a visitor to the site as an old mom, who seldom goes online, has bad eyesight and only wants to know about the weather. By organizing and minimizing the amount of reading(processing) and navigation the reader has to go through, the website design has achieved its basic mission. Then there's the issue of website identity. Logos and names should be the most eye-catching content on the site, and repeat itself through out pages. The new york times logo might not be the most preferred font on the web, but sustains the sense of its brand. Good design should be able to sustain a brandname or a personality for average audience.