The importance of aesthetics in Product Design
In one of my previous jobs, I had really interesting debates with the CEO regarding whether we should spend more time improving the way our app looks and feels. ‘How could he not care that the design is outdated?! It’s used by millions of people and it could easily be improved!’.
He didn’t budge, he was positive that the company is prioritizing the real things that move the business, focusing mostly on high growth moves.
I was bummed that my design skills didn’t matter much to him. I’m passionate about both UX and visual design and I don’t want to spend my life working for companies who only want to use a small part of my skills.
Despite that, I was able to view his points — I couldn’t prove him wrong, the company was growing and while our users complained about many things, none of them said ‘it’s too ugly for me’.
Value > Aesthetics
The CEO had some points right. If the product gives enough value, there is no need for beautiful aesthetics. Companies like Amazon or Reddit are perfect examples of that.
Furthermore, If the product is beautiful but doesn’t give enough value, the product will fail. Nobody would use a product that has the aesthetics of the hottest shots on Dribbble if it’s not very functional or missing some key features.
But he wasn’t entirely right. Beautiful products have value points that are hard to recognize when every micro decision is being A/B tested, but are extremely impactful for the organization.
Aesthetics say who you are
Aesthetics in product design is similar to the visual appearance in real life. It’s important that we dress nice, take a haircut or wear deodorant for work if we want to impress someone and make them comfortable with us. It doesn’t change the value we can give to other people. It does change how receptive people are when they listen to you, and how they remember you later. It won’t change the things you say, but the way others feel about you before, during, and after you’re saying those things.
Aesthetics help you against your competition
While it’s really hard to create an equal competitor to Amazon, it’s not always the case. Often different companies are competing in the same field, all of them giving pretty much the same value for pretty much the same price.
Think about companies that are really successful at what they’re doing — Slack, Medium, and Mailchimp. None of them invented a new market. Team chat, blogging, and email marketing software existed long before them. Still, they somehow managed to become the first name people think about when looking for a solution in that market. All of them also created a unique visual language that is full of personality.
Aesthetics increase numbers
Even though value and messaging are usually the most crucial elements for a company to grow, having the right visuals at the right time could convince more people to purchase what you offer. A pricing screen, for example, is the place where people decide on purchasing your product or not. A clean design in a pricing screen helps make the messages clear and readable, and it could result in a very significant increase in conversion.
In the product teams I’ve worked it, the most common thing for people to debate about is the prioritization of development tasks. Many team members (often the ambitious ones) want to promote ideas they think would help the company grow, and it’s not always clear about which path is the right one.
Sometimes making things in your product more beautiful is a great idea, but when promoting such an idea, you need to answer ‘Why is it important for us right now?’. Inexperienced designers usually answer something along the lines of ‘because it could look so much better!!’. This would convince nobody but their fellow bad designers.
Try to be mindful of your company’s goals, and think about how great design could lead your company to greatness, and you will succeed. Aesthetics alone can’t build a product, but building a product with bad aesthetics would often be much harder.
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