Have you heard the dangerous lie that’s going around? It goes like this: “Design isn’tthat important. I have an ugly site and it sells like crazy. It outperforms the ‘well designed’ site I used to have.”

• Ugly sites outperform beautiful ones
• To make our sites uglier
• Pretty pages suck
• Ugly products sell better
• Food manufacturers used beautiful designs to create iconic brands. These designs helped them sell more products at a time when competition was brutal and fierce. Case in point? Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has always had stiff competition, but it’s their iconic bottle design that helped them come out on top.
• People buy more from design-driven companies. The good news? Research showsDesign-driven companies outperform the S&P by 228% over 10 years. The bad news is that out of a pool of 75 publicly traded U.S. companies, only 15 meet the criteria to be considered design-driven
• People form first impressions about websites, people, etc. in 1/10th of a second or 50 milliseconds. This first impression is based entirely on visuals and it utilizes emotion. These snap judgments bypass logical reasoning completely and once made, are incredibly difficult to shake.
• Research shows physically attractive people are viewed as more sociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, and intelligent.
• Tangible factors like typography, color, layout, quality, imagery, etc. Things users can see.
• Intangible factors like clarity, ease-of-use, trust, values, credibility, uniqueness, risk, the UX, etc.

1. A tangible/intangible conflict
2. Design expectations that miss the mark
3. Beauty without benefit

1. A TANGIBLE/INTANGIBLE CONFLICT

2. DESIGN EXPECTATIONS THAT MISS THE MARK

3. BEAUTY WITHOUT BENEFIT

WHAT ABOUT THE UGLY SUCCESS STORIES?

CRAIGSLIST

DRUDGE REPORT

LINGSCARS.COM

WHEN IT COMES TO DESIGN, BEAUTY IS THE DEFAULT

WHAT MAKES A DESIGN SUCCESSFUL?

1. It has a purpose and a plan
2. It’s crafted around and serves your users
3. It aligns with tangible /intangible presentation factors
4. It’s iterative, continuing to evolve around users
5. It isn’t a cute, clever or trendy art piece

YOUR DESIGNS SHOULD BE PURPOSEFUL AND CLEAR

BY ANDREW MCDERMOTT