How Good Design Will Save and Make You Money

Baruch Sachs

Senior Global Director

Pegasystems

Partner:

Design is a concept frequently overlooked by the c-suite when it comes to implementing important customer-facing plans. Executives don’t always know the impact design can have on a business decision, but that’s mostly because they don’t understand that design makes or breaks the user experience (UX).

In my experience working with executives, I can’t force them to feel passionate about amazing UX or great design, but I can help them realize that both will help meet goals and create a more profitable business. Need convincing? Here are two major points about design and UX that fit in with all executive goals today:

Successful design saves money

Investing in design upfront prevents costly errors downstream. Making sure products are delivered quickly to customers might seem like a good thing, but it has to be done right. Without considering design, rapidly pushing a product out to customers is shortsighted and fails to deliver a positive outcome.

Think about building a house. Typically, you hire an architect and review layouts before breaking ground. Now, imagine building a house without these things. Toward the end of the process, after the framework is done and the drywall is up, you bring in an architect who tells you to install an iron beam, or else the house will collapse. It is much more expensive to install that beam in the middle of construction than if you hired the architect at the outset.

The same is true with UX and design, which have to be considered and implemented early on to prevent costly mistakes in the development stages. I have seen it happen when software is ready to be released, only for the company to delay shipments due to design errors that need to be corrected. It always easier, cheaper, and faster to fix something in the early planning and development stages than it is to fix a finished product.

It is estimated that for every dollar invested in design, you save $10 if you need to fix an error in development, versus $100 if you needed to fix that same defect in production. Spend the money on design today, unless you like wasting money tomorrow.

Successful design makes money

When it comes to products that consumers want to buy, quality content and features need to be there. But design is at the heart of why people purchase something, as it directly impacts the user experience. Consumers buy products because they enable them to execute tasks better due to a seamless design that goes hand-in-hand with the product’s capabilities. Investing in design is essentially investing in a guarantee that people will buy your product.

Think about using Amazon.com and how easy it is to search and buy things. Most of the time people use such a small portion of that website to do so, whether it be on a desktop or mobile. However, it’s extremely easy to find and purchase what you are looking for. That’s the power of design. Design-focused thinking makes it possible to architect massive amounts of information in such a way that anyone can quickly identify and execute tasks.

Good design means a better product, which is ultimately more profitable. Remember – thinking about design from the very inception of an idea will save and make you more money in the long run.

Presented By: Pegasystems

Oct 07, 2015