Or, Why You Need Professional Design

Ever wondered why some companies spend a lot of time, effort and money on brand designers, UX/UI designers and on designers who handle all the marketing stuff? Basically, they put in a lot of their hard-earned money into different categories of designers alone.

Why is that?

Design matters a lot in how a brand can influence its target audience. Its impact is so strong that it has the ability to make or mar a business. So, it is these brands that understand the value of design in the journey of a business that make the frontline. And the rest? Well, here’s to them and to all the would-be brand owners:

We discuss here 10 of the several important ways in which design can influence businesses. While the term ‘design’ covers a whole galaxy of fields, let’s focus on the branch which our team at Design Studio is expert at: UX/UI design.

1. Good Design Turns Eyeballs

Who doesn’t turn their heads for attractive…well, let’s just say ‘things’!

The first impact that any product has on us is on a visual level. So, what about the motto we designers shout, “UX over UI”?

Don’t get us wrong. What we designers mean is, “Deal with the user experience first and then move to the user interface.” This doesn’t mean that we’re asking people to make things only functional and not pretty. No. We like to create beauties with brains.

When you hire a professional designer for your product, you are investing in the looks, the functionality and the personality of the product.

The stronger and more attractive the personality is, the more people would love to take at least one peek at it and subsequently interact with it.

2. Emotional Influence

The one thing that no successful business will ever reveal is that they focus on the emotions of their products, and not on the features.

Sounds odd? See it this way:

Why would a company add a specific feature to their application if their target audience did not need or covet it?

An application or website that serves the needs of their target audience is great! One that serves the needs and goes beyond to serve their emotional needs is greater!!

People bond with a brand because that particular brand not only gives them what they were lacking but is also curated to match their taste and lifestyle. Most humans are emotionally wired. So, the more a brand or a product can tap on their heartstrings, the more it can be relatable to them and represent them, the more likely they will be to allow themselves to be adopted by this brand.

3. Ease of Use

As we always say, design is not simply about making things look pretty. It is primarily about making things easy to use.

A well-designed product is a well-planned one.

No offence but when an idea is sent directly to the development team, they tend to focus on the features that they need to develop. It’s not a bad thing. It’s what their job is. A designer, on the other hand, is trained to solve the problem, find the optimal solution, and see what works best for the end-users and for the business.

When a designer takes on a project, they focus on the usability, the navigation, readability and many other factors, besides good looks, that make an application or a website very easy to use.

So, if you’re planning to skip the big bridge of design, then mind you, your product might fall into the water while your target audience is choosing someone else’s product on the other side.

4. Brand Consistency

A brand is known by its colours and its personality.

While your developer can definitely add your logo and colours to your product, they may not be able to inject your brand’s personality into it.

This will ultimately result in a product which looks somewhat familiar to your brand but looks quite detached.

Hiring a professional designer for the purpose will make sure that the brand consistency is maintained throughout the look and feel of your product.

5. Marketing Success

An average user takes less than 1 second to scroll past an ad on their mobile devices. So, before you can blink, your ad might be lost to a potential customer forever.

The only way to make sure that your target audience not only looks at your ad but also clicks/taps on it, is by having an appealing and easy design for it.

Just as brand consistency is needed in the design of a product, similarly, it is also needed in marketing strategy. So, having a professional designer create all your marketing stuff will actually result in consistency, professionalism and great looks for your marketing materials.

6. Customer Trust

Do you remember the last time you had seen some weird-looking, messy kind of packaging at your favourite grocery store? What was your reaction? Was it like, “Oh my God! I’m never touching that. If the package design is so careless, how bad will the product be!” or was it like, “Hmm. I don’t judge a book by its cover. Let me try this out.”

Usually, people would have the former kind of thoughts, and would veer off in an opposite direction, never to look at that product again.

It’s human nature to judge a product by its looks first, and then delve deeper into the usefulness.

So, if you’re planning to hook your target audiences, you will need a design that’s quite presentable. Only then people will trust it and approach it to try it out.

7. Interactive and Engaging

Having difficulty in making people understand how to use your application? Use an onboarding video or point the main functionalities out in a few steps.

Want to make sure that your customers stay on product for long? Make it interactive.

These subtle things that people tend to ignore usually end up being vital turning points in the success of a product. When people use a website or an application, they would expect it to simply take commands and give the desired output.

But when the application acknowledges their commands, helps them, reacts according to the user’s input or makes the whole process more interesting, it triggers surprise and happiness in the user.

It makes the user experience memorable, and plays a vital role in acquiring more than one loyal customer.

Trigger positive and unexpected emotions in users. They’ll remember your product in a good way, will come back to it, and might bring in more users.

8. Motivates Users to Take Actions

A professional design takes into account both the end-users and the business.

A well-developed product will make sure that all the necessary features are working correctly without any glitch.

A well-designed product will make sure that the users find the product intuitive to use, and tap/click on all the right buttons so that they as well as the business can profit from the product.

So, basically, a good design motivates users to take actions that are pre-planned by both the business and designer(s). These actions are laid out in such a way that the user is guided to the CTAs without them feeling overwhelmed about it.

9. Easily Digestible Content

Professional design allows the user to absorb content quite effortlessly. It means that the user won’t have to seek out necessary information; they just find it in a snap of the fingers.

A popular saying goes like “Good design is invisible”. What this suggests is that when a website or application is designed well, the design itself does not stand out as a barrier between the user and what they seek.

Instead, the design silently guides the user to the required content, shares necessary information, and takes the user to the conversion page.

10. Customer Experience

And here we come to the ultimate reason why good design is mandatory for a successful business! After all, everything we do is part of the much bigger picture titled ‘customer experience’.

From the very first time a potential lead visits your website or app download page or simply sees a marketing ad, their customer journey begins. It is a continuous process in which the person becomes a lead, converts into a customer, remains a loyal customer, and brings in more leads for you.

Every phase, including the follow-up mail after the customer has availed your services, needs to be properly planned.

Design here plays a very important role as it defines your tone, personality, dedication to your business and to your customers, your service and a lot more.

So, that’s it! In conclusion, I’d only say that design is an essential part of almost everything we see around us. So, assuming that it isn’t necessary for your business would be sacrilege! Design your way to a successful brand!!

The graphics used for in this article are from a generous contribution made by Ahmet Çadırcı to the design community. Thank you, Ahmet!

Starting a new venture? In the middle of one? Or thinking of reviving an old one? Be it anything from any industry, just let us know, and we will help you sort it out!

About the author:

Sudeshna Adhikary is a UX researcher at Design Studio. Creativity is her middle name. Exploring, learning, believing in super-human powers, talking and eating are her favourite things to do.