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There’s a quote by T.J. Watson Jr, former CEO of IMB that says, “Good design is good business.”

When you look around, you see design everywhere. It is, of course, in the ads you see and websites you visit, but it is also in your clothing, the appliances in your home, the packing of your food. It’s everywhere! And whether or not you realize it, the design is often a key factor in why you chose that product or visited that website.

We rely daily on brands and their services to entertain, inform and guide us in life, more now than ever in this pandemic world we live in.

A ‘Most Trusted branded 2021’ survey by Adweek recently announced their winners with the majority of the top spots are occupied by tech companies such as You Tube and Amazon. Their services that we interact with on a daily basis have User Interfaces (UI) and strong emphasis on User Experience (UI).

Whilst many consumers dont have design experience to perfectly or accurately articulate why one service is better to use than another…they do know when something isn’t ‘right’ or the expected ‘norm’.

Design has a lot of power, especially when building a website, service or product. Let’s look at some of the ways that good design can improve your online business.

Good Design Makes a Strong First Impression

The first thing you notice about a product is the design. It is your first impression of a business. When a potential customer visits your page for the first time, what do you want to communicate?

For example, if you offer a professional service like, say, legal advice, you can communicate the tone of your business with a minimalist design. Direct users to a clear call to action and make things like contact information and services easily accessible.

This will give the first impression that you’re professional, organized, and serious about your work. Quality design communicates all of that in a split second.

Good Design Increases Trustworthiness

When a product or service is designed well, the customer is more likely to trust it.

Using the example of a website where users can find legal advice, poor design can often hurt trust. For instance, setting all of your text to comic sans or something overly whimsical shows that you’re a bit out-of-touch, and it also conveys a carefree attitude or sense of silliness that you do not want to be associated with that kind of business.

Good Design Improves the User Experience

Good design and a good user experience often go hand-in-hand. A key thing to remember is that design goes beyond appearance — color, font, shape — to include how well something functions.

You want your website to be easy to use. It should feel intuitive. This means that navigation is clear, the structure of your website flows well, and users can easily find the answers they need and quickly.

Good Design Creates Brand Recognition and Authority

A good design strategy can be applied to all of your materials — from your website to your email broadcasts to your products and services. In time, your customer begins to recognize that design and can immediately associate it with your business.

The longer you provide good service using a signature, quality design, the more customers will grow to trust your brand, and eventually, that design will do the marketing for you.

The more powerful and established a brand, the less they have to do to identify themselves to the general public.

Just look at Apple. They hardly need to put anything in their marketing products except a little gray apple and a clean white background. But immediately, customers recognize the brand and associate the product or service with the level of quality that they expect from Apple.

In conclusion

Establishing a quality design strategy should be a top priority for any business whether you’re an already established business or a startup looking to make waves. With a design-led approach to business you will see the impact not only in how your customer base perceives you but also in your data. For a more in depth look at this subject checkout our Benefits of a design-led business approach article.