Cost of bad design: I write this article in the context of software product development. We all know that UX and design plays a very important role in software product development. In fact, this is true. Regardless of the type of product that you are selling to the customer because first looks matter. This is the first indication or impression that a customer has of your product or service. The point is – design of a product makes a customer feel a certain way.
Good design is invariably expensive because it is backed by science and good talent which works on good design is going to be expensive. However, if we are unwilling to spend on good design, then we have to think about the cost of bad design in your product. I take inspiration from the CEO of JLR for this article on the cost of bad design.
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.”
— Dr. Ralf Speth, Chief Executive Officer, Jaguar Land Rover
Table of Contents
What is the cost of bad design?
Let’s try and explore this a little more right? What are the possible costs of bad design – whether it is an entrepreneurship or an established business, design has its cost. A bad design has numerous implications such as:
Brand value
People associate poor design with your product and thus hampering all products in your business line. If you produce a bad design let’s say even for a new product – then it makes the user question whether you’re struggling to make ends meet or trying to save money etc.
If you are a startup – thinking either about investment funding or crowd funding – think about what the cost of bad design for you will be if you come across as a poor or cheap brand (Good designs enable trust)
Cheap quality
First impressions matter. If this is the first indication of your product or service, then customers will think that a badly designed product is cheap or inadequate because it fails to understand customer perceptions. Hence, the idea of MVP is now slowly fading and being replaced by MLP which is a minimum lovable product. It makes you think – what’s the minimum feature set or release you must make for people to fall in love with your product.
Questions about capability and efficacy
Users associate appearance with quality and capability of the product. The initial impression if done poorly or with a bad design – it makes the user quesiton whether this is a good product at all. This also makes both users and investors wonder if they should put money into you if the quality is bad. Cost of bad design is not just about how it appears or the colours on the screen. UX is more complex than this nowadays.
UX is about how easy it is for the customer to reach their AHA moment. If you don’t invest in this research and identify how quickly you can get the customer their – the cost of bad design will catchup to you and you will start losing customers.
Increased Costs
Let’s talk about the bottomline in relation to the cost of bad design. A bad design will eventually need redesign which will ask for investment. If you’ve got a customer base who is used to a bad design, retraining them on a new design will involve irritating existing customer base while you try to capture new customers.
Design cannot be an afterthought– it has to be a part of initial product development to enable its scale and strategic development of the product. The more we think about bad designs or quick fixes, the worse it will be in the future because it causes tech debts, reworks which are always more expensive. (Reasons for technical debt)
Scaling problems as a cost of bad design
Ultimately, whether you are a startup or established business, your product success is based on your ability to scale. If you have a bad design, you will struggle to scale the product since it will require redesign which might ask for changes in the platform or rehashing the old code base.
Again, this is clearly asking to spend more time initially to understand what you are building, what customers want and to see if there’s a pathway for the future. So even though, the game is about quick releases, MVPs and getting to the market quickly, we have to ensure spending time initially to create a pathway for strategy.
Conclusion: Cost of bad design
In conclusion, I’d like to highlight that design is not a one off exercise. It will require consistent effort, ensuring that we spend time in research, development and deployment of something new. Don’t think about what you can get away with. But think about what is the least you can to for the customer to fall in love with your product. It will help you prevent the cost of bad design and corresponding challenges enabling better quality of problems as you scale the product.
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.”
— Dr. Ralf Speth, Chief Executive Officer, Jaguar Land Rover