Good design is good business.
From dating apps to online shopping, we choose products, services, and people based on beauty.
Successful business owners know this well.
According to Adobe, companies with a strong design outperform companies with a weak design by 219% on the S&P Index (a stock market index) over the span of 10 years.
In fact, 48% of people surveyed by Tyton Media said that the website design of a business was their number one factor in determining the credibility of that business.
So not only is good design directly tied to success, but it’s also tied to trust.
People don’t trust just anyone. As we previously wrote:
When people work with a company, they want to know they’re working with professionals. Investing in professional design shows that your business values professionalism and sends a powerful message to potential clients or customers. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and using a professional designer helps you make it as effective as possible. Investing wisely is key to sustaining and growing your business, and design is no exception.
Here are 7 proven reasons why good design is good business (and how you can use design to increase your small business revenues).
1. Good design makes a strong first
Good design is about using colors, shapes, textures, space, forms, images, and content in a harmonious, balanced way.
Good design starts with a strong brand.
A well-designed logo is an important part of a company’s brand. As we wrote previously:
A great logo design can be the difference between blending in and standing out from the competition. But while we often recognize the value of a great logo, we don’t always prioritize it.
New business owners often incorrectly believe that a good logo will cost thousands or tens of thousand of dollars. As a result, they sometimes buy pre-made logos in an online logo store or try a do-it-yourself approach.
In fact, entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones who make the mistake of using generic logos- businesses of all sizes sometimes use logo shortcuts, only to find out that it’s even more expensive to rebrand later. After all, memorable logos are 13% more likely to get consumers attention, and 71.6% more likely to get a positive response from consumers. In a world of noise, that can make a big difference.
In the digital age, companies only have a matter of seconds before a customer makes up their mind.
Those few seconds are crucial because they can make or break a sale – and design plays a huge role in the deciding factor.
For example, it only takes people 10 seconds to form a first impression of a brand’s logo, but it takes 5-7 impressions for consumers to recognize the logo.
Numerous studies confirm the importance of first impressions. As we summarized in Why Good Design is More Important Than Ever for Your Business:
People have a very short attention span. In fact, according to a Princeton University study, snap judgments count. The study found after seeing a face for only 1/10th of a second people formed opinions about that person. Judgments were made on attractiveness, likeability, and trustworthiness, and prolonged exposure to that face just reinforced the initial impression.
The same goes for websites. Three studies found that a mere 50 milliseconds were all people needed to form an opinion about a website. Google performed similar testing and found an even slimmer margin: a speedy 17 to 50 milliseconds were all people needed to decide how they felt about a website.
Good design is a signal to customers that they should buy from you.
This is true not only online, but also for physical products.
Packaging design, for example, can alter the perception of your product. Chris Scott, in his article “How to create a go-to-market strategy for a new product” points out:
We all want to believe that consumers make decisions on products and services strictly based on merit, with the best one winning. In spite of that hope, psychologists and retailers agree that in many cases this just isn’t true. Quality aside, sometimes the flashier, prettier or sexier product wins the day.
So what does this mean for retailers and product manufacturers? What it means is that creating a terrific product is only part of the formula for sales success. Packaging it perfectly, complete with eye-catching graphics and colors, is just as important to your financial success.
2. Good design helps your business stand out.
If you thought you had no competition, think again.
Every company, no matter the industry, faces a hefty amount of competition.
Good design can make or break your business:
If your designs are current, modern and impressive, people will just gravitate towards your products. It’s a fact of life. The next time you go to the grocery store, browse a random isle that you never look through and ask yourself which items on the shelves catch your eye first. I guarantee it’ll be the products with phenomenal design, branding and modern packaging.
Creating a successful product, service or website is all about getting eyeballs to it. What if you can spend less money but generate more eyeballs just because something looks better than the others? Would you not take the time to invest more upfront to get those kinds of results? That’s the great thing about good design, you don’t have to spend more but you’re automatically able to generate more attention.
Don’t just take our word for this. Steven Bradley, the author of Design Fundamentals, points out that people are inherently biased towards beauty:
Human beings have an attractiveness bias; we perceive beautiful things as being better, regardless of whether they actually are better. All else being equal, we prefer beautiful things, and we believe beautiful things function better. As in nature, function can follow form.