Bad Design Can Kill Your App
Do pretty things work better?
Yeah it’s a weird question. Kind of doesn’t make sense really, since the look of something doesn’t actually affect the functionality of it. Or does it?
See, I’ve made many mistakes in this app game so far. The good thing… I’ve tried to learn from them. One that took me a little too long to process was the theory of app design.
Design matters.
Design matters as much as functionality, because very seldom does functionality alone pay in a large market.
Let’s Be Honest With Ourselves Here
Would you buy a car 100% based on how well it drives? How safe it is? Not unless you like the way it looks.
Do you pick your clothes for functionality? Not unless they also make you look at least a bit sexy.
We care about how things look, because that affects how we feel.
4 Lines That Had Me Re-Design WakeUUUP!
“Quality is not only not necessary, for many items it’s undesirable. If we define quality as regularly meeting the measured specifications for an item, then quality matters a lot for something like a pacemaker. It doesn’t matter at all for a $3,000 haute couture dress. More fashion = less need for quality. (My emphasis)” – Seth Godin, Tribes.
I worked my ass off making sure that the difficult functionality of WakeUUUP! was great. And because I focused on it working well, I let the design slip.
Let’s Compare
The Oldie. Wasn't Flying.
Feels Better To Use.
I had finally finished the app. And it worked great. But just working great didn’t mean the app as a whole was great.
It was good. And good isn’t worth sh*t anymore. I put so much time, energy and money into this project and I just couldn’t settle on it being good.
So I hired a design team out of Los Angeles to revamp this mother. And they did an amazing job.
The Take-Away
What I learned is that design matters because it affects how people feel towards your product.
We really have to concern ourselves with the user’s experience while using our apps. It has to look great, to help them feel better using it.
It’s not just outside visuals, like cars and clothes like I mentioned earlier. It’s also about those times when the user is all alone in her bedroom playing with your app.
They will be much more forgiving when it comes to bugs, a lack of functionality, or any other errors because us humans believe that sexy is better.
Better design means a better experience.
What Do You Think?
How much of a role do you think design has in app development?
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