Sell good design, because good design sells

What is good design? It’s hard to explain. But you know good design when you see it:

• When you tap your phone to pay (I very recently realized that I don’t need to open my wallet app, I can just unlock my phone to pay!)
• When you buy/sell a car on your phone without haggling and mind games with dealerships.
• When a public bathroom stall has doors that go all the way to the floor and has no gaps between the door and the wall.

You can feel good design, even if you don’t know how to create it. I’d argue that recognizing good design makes you a designer. You might not be good at it (for now), but having good taste is the first step.

Good design also makes money.

Just look at the companies that leverage design as a differentiator: Apple, Airbnb, Linear, Uber etc. Good design is the reason why startups pitch themselves as the next “Apple” or the next “Uber” for their industry.

So why don’t more companies invest in good design?

Because designers aren’t good at communicating their value. And we are several steps removed from the decision makers in the org chart.

We are experts at determining what makes a design good from a user’s standpoint. But we also need to connect how changing a user’s behavior via design drives financial impact. Otherwise, we’ll keep getting relegated to prettifying other people’s ideas.

So how does design prove its value?

Design has a superpower that other disciplines don’t: we can visualize the future. We envision this future through mockups, prototypes and maps backed by research. And we need to envision this future without asking for permission.

Solve the pressing problems, but also carve out time to think beyond reactionary design changes. Craft a vision for the near future (six months to a year). If we’re successful, we can get our stakeholders excited enough about the near future to invest in it.

Our industry is continuously changing. And companies need to respond to change or die. Design is how companies not only de-risk the future, but also invest in it.

For designers, saying “good design sells” isn’t enough.

We must actively sell good design.

P.S. Designers have been clamoring for a seat at the table for the past decade, only to realize that we were playing musical chairs against product.