Welcome design from day 1

Let me start by saying that you will not be able to UI/UX things up later on. Design isn’t something you can sprinkle on top of your poorly crafted product. It isn’t like your failed sunny side up eggs where you throw some spices on the top to make your Sunday brunch pic look cooler for the GRAM.The truth is, design is a way of thinking that informs every part of your business and it should be at the core of what you do from day one. It is a belief that I encourage you to welcome sooner rather than later. Trust me, I’ve experienced this by working for several different companies and on several different projects: the later you realise it, the longer it will take to change things. Not to count that it will be far more expensive.Design is non-negotiable for startups today — It’s a level technical playing field. For most startups, it isn’t the technology that makes or breaks them.Design instead is the modern day's companies’ biggest differentiator. It is essential to the future success of organizations, and it is unlikely that a company founded today will flourish without a robust and consistent design strategy.

How can startups incorporate design into their culture?

So the big question then is, how do startups can welcome the importance of design early on? The answer is simple: it needs to come from the top.

Founders need to believe in the strategic advantage a design-driven approach can give them.

• If you are an employee reading this article, you need to focus on education and awareness. Why do you believe in the importance of design? Share your belief with the wider company.

• If you are a founder reading this article, you need to understand that the earlier you bring design into your company, the more you can reap the benefits. The earlier you listen to your customers the more willing those users will be to pay for your services. In addition to that, you have to understand that your beliefs WILL influence your company culture. If you are not a believer in a design-driven company, you will likely lose the designers that joined your journey in the first place. Or at least the good ones. Good design comes from good designers. And good designers believe in a design-first approach.

Sell the WHY, not the WHAT

Design plays a key role in selling the WHY. Focus on WHY your users should come to you and not to the competitor next door. As Simon Sinek says:

People don’t buy what you do; people buy why you do it.

• Focus on your users and understand why they struggle.

• Make assumptions and experiments as to why those users would use your solution instead of someone else’s.

Good design is free marketing

Consumer expectations have changed. People have come to expect more user-devoted, frictionless experiences from their interactions with technology. Nowadays average design and user experience are simply not good enough anymore.

There is a direct correlation between a well-designed product and loyalty. Customers that have a positive experience tend to spend more, more often and tell their friends.

There is also a direct correlation between a poor-designed product and received complaints. When design creates a negative emotion, users will more than likely never come back. Sure, you might be able to re-brand yourself later on. But it is almost guaranteed that those people you lost while design was not yet a priority, are customers gone forever.

Design can be a direct route to free marketing through the positive word of mouth it helps to generate.

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.

— Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Likewise, if you make customers happy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends!

“Good design” is more objective than you think.

The common example and comparison to Design that people tend to do is Art. If art was purely subjective, then there would be no possible way to distinguish good art from bad art. This would entail that there would have been no real way to distinguish between art worth £100 vs £1,000,000. If art was purely subjective, why would we use the word talent to describe someone who is artistically inclined?

The points above can also be applied to designs. If design was purely subjective, there is no reason why more experienced designers should get paid more than their junior peers. What would seniority bring if not the experience of crafting more appealing, engaging and user-friendly designs?

Good. Now that we have at least established that Good Design is ‘somewhat’ objective, let me tell you why Design might be more objective than what you originally thought.

The science behind Aesthetics

Yes. You heard it right. There is a whole science behind good design. To be completely frank, there are a WHOLE BUNCH of scientific methods that study the application of design and what makes up a well-designed product (either physical or digital).

The Principles of Design allow you to effectively investigate the aesthetics of a particular work, whether it be an oil painting or the user interface of a website. These principles include:

• Balance

• Emphasis

• Movement

• Pattern

• Repetition

• Proportion

• Rhythm

• Variety

• Unity

An “aesthetically pleasing” design is the result of one or a combination of these principles.

Design’s purpose is to solve problems

The purpose of design, apart from aesthetics, is to manifest as a solution to an existing problem. The solution is only as good as the problem is defined. And it is only as strong as the WHY you want to solve a given problem.

A UI or UX designer might create different variants of the same solution depending on the variables defined above.

Problem frame & Framed solution

The key to creating an objectively good design is to define the problem and review the solution while keeping into account the problem frame. Examples:

• Problem frame 1: Business revenue is going down because data (i.e. Google Analytics, Hotjar, amplitude, etc) tells you that users are struggling to complete checkout.

• Framed solution 1: In a checkout screen, the CTA “add more items to the basket” should be outlined (and not full colour) so that users are not drawn away from their main journey and can successfully complete the checkout activity.

• Problem frame 2: Business revenue is going down because data (i.e. Google Analytics, Hotjar, amplitude, etc) tells you that users are trying to add new products but they are struggling to find the correct CTA and therefore they complete the checkout with fewer items in their baskets.

• Framed solution 2: In a checkout screen, the CTA “add more items to the basket” should be full-colour so that it carries stronger affordance and users will more likely DISCOVER it (not necessarily click it). You want to make the button visible. Not to trick users into clicking it.

The latest stats say that 1 out of 5 new businesses fails in the UK each year. It is a harsh world out there. Full of villains and life curve-balls. You almost need superpowers to make it. Well, lucky you. I’m here to tell you that Design CAN be your superpower — your unfair advantage. As long as you are willing to embrace a design-driven culture.

——

Read more stories like this on Medium