Why is Good Design Important?

  • Author: Ash' Burnham

Do you value good design? Is it something you deem important?

If you’re a business owner, or someone who actually works in design, there’s some likelihood that you value design. Probably a little bit more highly compared with the average person. As you’ll likely understand its benefits as far as branding, marketing and other “businessey” things go.

But the worrying thing is that most people don’t value design arguably as much as they should. I mean, we all appreciate and benefit from good design whether we acknowledge it or not; we act (and think) differently when we’re around it. Due to it’s subliminal psychological effects on us which aren’t often apparent. But sometimes that’s exactly the point. Sometimes the definition of ‘good design’ is that you don’t notice that it’s there; it just does its job.

Bad Design

Bad design on the other hand, is a different story and can be a bit of a problem. Particularly in the world of business, but also in almost all walks of human life in my opinion.

An example of bad design, in terms of function, would be the rather strange decision made by Apple a while ago. To place the newly introduced charging port of the Magic Mouse 2 on the bottom of the device; thus making it unusable while charging. This, in the eyes of many, was one of the most questionable design moves ever made by the company.

photo of mac computer, design agency, graphic design hull

Following on from the psychological effects good design has on people, the same can be said about bad design but with regards to the opposite effect. Bad design can make people act and think negatively and unproductively. A bad UI design within an e-commerce website can result in less sales. Bad UX design within an app can result in people uninstalling it less than 30 seconds after they open it up and bad seatbelt or airbag design inside a car can result in people dying.

Good design helps businesses make more money, helps people live their lives more optimally, helps save lives in some cases and in general tends to make the world a nicer place!