Summary
Design should have the a balance between what it is and how it’s used. This means that your design should function beautifully and unnoticeably. This can be done as long as designers are driving your overall development process.
Invest In Design
In an increasingly digital age, consumers, customers, and employees have come to expect seamless online experiences in every aspect of their lives. They have more choices, better access to choices, and little patience.
To exist and thrive as a company, you must be in line or ahead of these expectations or chances are a competitor will step in and take your place.
One way to do this is through exceptional design. Design is more than a set of aesthetically pleasing interfaces. It’s a way of interaction. Well designed digital experiences have to function beautifully, quickly, and almost unnoticeably so. The best designs and companies create this reality and consumers respond in droves.
Frank Lloyd Wright, a revolutionary architect who purveyed his craft in the 50s and 60s was ahead of his time. He was among the first to introduce the now widely accepted “open floor plan” for residences and was famous for planning buildings around how people used them, making each incredibly unique to how that person lived. He did this without sacrificing looks and created structures that have had a lasting impact to his profession.
People once asked him, what’s more important, form [of the building] or function [how a structure is used], to which he replied, “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”
This is where most design can go wrong. It’s easy to create software that looks good, but for it to function around how people actually use it takes a deeper investment. It involves first, an intimate and extensive understanding of your user and the problem you’re trying to solve. That means talking to them, lots of them, and talking to them directly without agenda or bias.
Second it involves letting designers drive the process. This means designers are the ones talking to those users and recommending how your company should respond to make their experience seamless.
For a company that invests in any kind of digital transformation, or a company trying to start a new software idea, it means that you have to release some control, and remove roadblocks for your designers. Let them be free and bring ideas to you. Chances are if you are a CEO or any kind of executive leading a software initiative, you’ve got great ideas but may be too close to the action and need an outside perspective, someone who is a champion of the user.
From there, continued commitment is required. The world changes quickly, and you have to stay on top. If you do, the rewards are rich and plentiful. Competitors can likely do a lot of what you can do, but can you imagine if you did simply just did it better? Experience matters. Embrace the digital age with design and lead your company to new heights.
