Nowadays, successful companies stand out not only for the quality of their products or services but also for their innovative approach to design.
Take a moment to reflect on the beautiful aesthetics of Apple, the seamless experience of Uber, and the convenient offerings of Airbnb. What ties these industry giants together? They all understand the transformative power of design.
The Power of Innovation Through Design
What do Apple, Uber, and Airbnb have in common? They innovate through design. Tony Fadell, who is considered for many the father of the iPod, emphasizes the growing recognition of the importance of a good user experience. Companies that overlook this are missing a significant opportunity.
As human beings, we quickly adapt to everyday things. Our job as product designers is to see these things and find ways to improve them, to take them one step further. It’s about looking at things from a different and broader perspective. While solving a problem everyone sees is easy, solving a problem no one sees is the real challenge. These invisible problems are all around us, and our task is to identify and fix them.
The User Experience: Seeing Through the Customer’s Eyes
The job of a Product Designer is to make products that are easy to use for the intended target audience. By focusing on tiny details (the ones you might not initially see), companies can enhance their product’s appeal and functionality. Understanding the products through the eyes of the customers, grasping their motivations, goals, fears, and frustrations, is crucial.
Poor user experience frustrates people. They usually don’t blame the product creators; they blame themselves for not being tech-savvy enough to figure it out. This issue is exacerbated when the target audience is broad, including people who just want to get the job done without fiddling with technology.
Most of the times, users often have the option to abandon a product or service by simply uninstalling an app. But there are times that that’s not possible and that category includes government department pages, medical insurance plans, or bank services. In those cases, user experience plays a critical role and is often overlooked.
There’s a popular saying in the UX community:
“Good UX is like a joke. If you have to explain it, then it’s not that good.”
– Martin LeBlanc (Founder and CEO of Iconfinder)
That means when an interface isn’t intuitive, even the most tech-savvy person will struggle to accomplish their goals.
Speaking the “Business of Design”
The mature organizations of the world (like Amazon, Starbucks, IBM, and McKinsey) have embraced design as a critical component of corporate strategy. Design-driven businesses significantly outperform their competitors. In fact, 92% of top design-mature companies can directly link their design team’s efforts to their organization’s revenue.
In design-driven organizations, design leaders play a crucial role and are key to the company’s success. Therefore, beyond delivering high-quality design work, you need to “speak the language of business” by clearly showing how design boosts the company’s profits.
Conclusion
Most of the Fortune 500 companies harness the power of innovative design to elevate their products and user experiences. Product Designers must not only focus on quality work but also communicate its business value.
By enhancing user experience and addressing hidden problems, design can significantly boost profits, making it a crucial element of corporate strategy.
Further reading
- Nielsen Norman Group, Sarah Gibbons, “Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide”
- McKinsey & Company, McKinsey Design, “The Business Value of Design”
- Inside Design, Aaron Walter, “How to manage a design team”