ken_b - 9:15 pm on Jun 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'm actually looking for how humans interpret these words

That's fine, but you are asking webmasters the questions, and while webmasters may be human, they are not likely to give you the same answers as people from the general surfing population.

Take this question in particular:

Does quality include the appearance of a site, or only the content?

Has human nature been suspended on the web? Of course appearances count! We might like to kid ourselves and deny it, but all we'd be proving is how narrow minded and easily (self?) deluded we are.

The next one is a little trickier.

How about the organization of a site?

Who here really believes that people don't take "organization" into account when thinking in terms of "quality" of a site? They may use a different term, like "it's so easy to find stuff" on (their favorite site)!

It's my opinion that ease of use and appearance can outweigh actual "quality" for most surfers, most of the time. Fortunately quality, ease of use, and great looks are frequently, but nowhere near often enough, found on the same site.