Value of Design
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In We Do Not Need You To Design Anymore, Scrivs brings up the question of the value of design.
There are always going to be people on both ends of the spectrum just as there are some who eat McDonalds and others who eat at 5-star steakhouses (or drive a Kia versus a Mercedes).
Do you think there's value in good design, even if an ugly website performs well? Should we try to convince people who don't "get it"? -
"Do you think there's value in good design, even if an ugly website performs well? Should we try to convince people who don't "get it"?"
If an ugly website performs well, there is no value in design unless it performs even better afterwards... I used to work at an insurance company for a while, in the marketing department. It was a small intermediary so even as an intern/ex-intern I got to make a lot of decisions regarding design of the website and ads etc, and even though I am not that great a designer, I put a lot of effort in trying to create something looking good. However, we also tested a lot and the things I perceived as more beautiful did not work as good as the more ugly solution. We all know a lot of sites that work great but look poor, and as much as I want to redesign those sites (or at least see them redesigned, by someone else), I can understand that design is not a top priority for them.
Best solution would of course be to prove that your design actually increases whatever their goal is (money/visitors), but that sounds easier than it is of course. -
It has been interesting seeing the different takes people have gotten from my article. What I think (???) I'm trying to get across is that not everything site needs super great design. While it would be awesome to do so, there is a point of diminishing returns. For Apple it makes sense to have great design because they will make billions from it, but for a small site that is focused, the difference between great design and good enough design might be $50. That doesn't cover the cost of hiring a good designer.
As Roy mentions, a great design has to outperform a poor design by a large amount for most people to see value in it. -
I think there needs to be a distinction made between art and design. Even an artless, all-typography website is designed. Deciding to stick input labels above the text inputs rather than beside them is design even if you don't redo the look of the inputs themselves.
Is there value in design? Of course. If you throw everything together haphazardly and it confuses everyone it will look and perform poorly. Is there value in art? A lot of the time, no, there isn't. If a site functions exactly the same without art as it does with it, then the value of the art is merely on an aesthetic level. Of course, depending on who the site is trying to reach, that could have a big effect on people's willingness to use the site.
I wouldn't hire a designer whose personal site looked like Craigslist. But I would use Craigslist for Craigslist because it's designed, sans art, to do exactly what it says it's supposed to do. -
I agree with where @chairmanbrando is going with this. If we're talking about design as in interaction design, then the form should indicate a behavior / function. That form can be aesthetically pleasing and have a style to it. The form can be sparse and without much style, too.
Sometimes the Google results of a search on a business are better than the actual business landing page. This doesn't take anything away from design, since Google also is designed. It just means Google has done a better job than the over stylized business site in their presentation of that information.
There will not always be a value with someone who decorates, there is always a value with someone who designs. Take the infamous pizza flyer example. Most of them are ugly as hell, but we still use them. They are designed, in the form of the intention to communicate their deals and making sure the phone number/contact info is visible. The business goal is met with a sale. Not pretty, but they work.
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@Finch: We use the pizza flyer because those are the only type of pizza flyer. I don't think it is safe to always assume that just because everyone is using a design that it is the right design. When it comes to businesses like that many times they just don't know any better and do what the successful competition does.
A business goal is met with a sale for sure, but can more of a business goal be met with a cleaner design? I would love to test it out. -
@Scrivs What would be a good way to test that? I actually have to do a newsletter soon for an online webstore and since I'm using mailchimp I can do A/B testing with it by splitting the mailing list up. We have approximately 800 people in the list.
How would I do this test? Create one newsletter with a simple mailchimp template and then one that's much more well designed?
I'm willing to do two, send the email and report back with results.
