Does design really matter for startups?
attackofdesign.com
attackofdesign.com
Does anyone else actually like the visual design of HN? Besides the endless horizontal text problem, it's very easy to read, and there are no distractingly bad UI elements. Good minimalism, to me.
HN's design currently delivers a solid performance and its content is great. Looking a bit strange to passersby is probably a good thing, I don't think HN's focus is attracting new people, especially new people who are only attracted by the visual design.
I have no idea why the visual design of Stack Overflow is called horrible. It's ok, not awesome but certainly ok.
By the way, in that section I was talking purely about visual design, i.e. styling, or "eye candy". I'm not debating the fact that both sites have great user experience (in fact that's specifically why I picked them as examples).
I think you're right, trendiness does play a big role in style. And it's also true that complex designs generally get outdated faster than minimalist designs (see: 100% of Flash sites made between 2000 and 2005).
On the other hand, it's harder to brand minimalism. So like every design choice, it's a trade-off.
I regularly hear designers bitch about Linux, citing the command line as an example of terrible UI. That's fucking wrong. The Unix command line ecosystem has a fantastically good UI for its audience. (Grep is my homeboy.) It's just that the audience isn't your average design school student.
There's no such thing as "good design". There's only good design for your audience. What designers often call "good design" is really "good design for lightweight consumer products".
Yeah, to my mind this is bullshit. Reddit is another oft-quoted "horrible" design. Yahoo, msn also. It almost seems as if all the most popular sites on the planet are "horribly designed". Almost by definition this can't be true.
Personally I find both HN and SO great in terms of design. They're extremely easy to navigate, functionality and calls-to-action are clear and obvious. Data is presented in a meaningful and easy-to-read uncluttered manor. I'm not a design student (by any stretch of the imagination) but for the life of me I wouldn't be able to begin to guess what's so bad about either of these sites, unless it's the lack of super-whizzy glossy css3/js/ajax/flash magic that's the problem. Which is absurd, and only really relevant for "creatives".
Disclosure: I didn't read the article, so if it states why they're so bad I've missed out!
Of course, to measure if each part of your design is effective, you have to change it in isolation. I wouldn't surprised if there are elements of the new Wordpress site that decrease conversion, as well as some which are increasing it. If the design had been iterated on, instead of just rolling out the new design, we might know which elements should have been changed to create better results.
Similarly, you're right - elements of a design do not exist in isolation. However, any design will have a series of choices that resulted in its various elements. Some choices are small/minor enough that there exist other elements that also work together with the whole, and so A/B testing them isn't some insult to the idea of design, but an at least plausible decision-making tactic.
And maybe changing the font, and then the background separately would not make a difference, but changing both at the same time would make an impact. All those things are A/B testable in theory, but I don't think it would be very effective.
Sure, changing the font may be meaningless, but at least with a test, you KNOW it's meaningless. I try to let experience and taste guide my changes, but without checking that the change is effective you're just guessing.
Design exists to further a goal. Sometimes the goal is brand related, which I'll admit is just about impossible to measure, and sometimes it's seeing if you can reduce the frequency of support requests. One of these is obviously a better candidate for A/B testing.
[Edited to fix a spelling error]
Design is about finding the solution to a problem. Once you find a solution you can then apply a style to that solution
Does design matter for startups?
Yes always
Does style matter?
Rarely but still sometimes
Now of course you could argue that even a programming language is "designed", but that's clearly a different kind of design. You have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise "design" can pretty much be anything you want.
I would say that it matters quite a lot whether your software works without a GUI or even no interface whatsoever.
In any case you cannot not, design software.
Design _is_ almost anything you want and I find it more important to realize that than to try and draw lines somewhere.
I know brilliant software designers who can't draw a straight line but are excellent developers and have an excellent understanding of what it takes.
Maybe you were not commenting on the article but just making a point. If that's the case I apologize. But my post was specifically talking about the kind of design that you would hire a web designer to do, so in this case the line is pretty clearly drawn.
Again you are taking a small subpart of design and trying to make it the de facto standard of design. It's not.
Even if we where to use that subpart even within "web-design" there is a style component and a problem solving component just as there is a communication component.
Even if you design a CLI you are designing. It's pretty important what type you use, what colors you use and so one. Not for style purpose but for actual usefulness of the interface.
Users are more likely to trust a well designed site.
[1] http://tbbuck.com/building-a-web-application-that-makes-500-...
http://tbbuck.com/building-a-web-application-that-makes-500-...
Design is about solving problems, and a design led company/individual adopts a certain mind frame that often tends to contrast that of the engineer.
If you're designing a consumer product and your engineered concept works so well that you can actually consider whether or not you 'design' it, well, lucky you.
I would actually say Hacker News and Stack Overflow have very good design. They have design that meets the goals of the sites. That is what design is, meeting the goals of your product.
Sure, design can look good, but looking good is only one part of design. It’s not all of design.
Decoration merely helps.
That would be almost as redundant as what I'm doing now. :)
Now for the web as a whole, good design definitely makes a difference, even if it doesn't affect conversion rate. At that point, look at your content.
I really wish HN had more articles about design, but oft times it just flows into a diatribe about visual style, which is just one sub component of design.
If you are working on your startup think what "sort" of design you should have first. Imagine if Graham would make HN in fashion website style and vice versa.
And yes, I'm not a tech guy, I'm a designer. Which is why I'm writing about design, and not tech.
Design is how the cup looks, and more importantly feels in your hand. Engineering is making sure the cup don't fall apart, keeps the cofee in the cup and don't leak. The coffe is the content.