I personally start with a function and develop a complinmentary form for it. I’d struggle to start with a creative idea and give a function in the real world. I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks on this.

For what purpose am I designing for?

Form follows function
For what purpose am I designing for?
Johan, I am not sure I understood your comment entirely.

Defining the purpose of what the design should reflect is step one in my thinking. On basis of the information I have, I can form an idea of what direction the design should go. Industrial design is a good example of that, I want to build an esthetic looking chair but also a chair that is comfortable and pleasing for the person who has to use it. In webdesign it is just the same thing, for example I make rounded tabs but I want them to look good but usable. If they need to be usable I want them in that color, that size, positioned horizontally. In this phase I am already adjusting my initial form to accomodate the functionality of my tabs. I started in step one with the form but had to compromise functionality to form.

Something like that.

As in designing web sites, I’d have to agree with Johan in a way, in most cases like in business sites (not all, but most) and entertainment the look & feel almost prevails over functions. The message is being brought through how overwhelming or “hip” the design looks and how agressive or subtle the colors are and how the containers of the content look and so forth… That’s at least what I’ve observed :D

Also, many a times, the form includes lots of features for the wow or cool factor. However, I sometimes question longevity of its effect. A classic example is that of the AJAXed Yahoo! Mail. I really think it is completely misplaced, it has degraded the user experience when compared to the earlier version.