Wage labor is going through hard times. Self-employment seems to young people not only more attractive, but also an authentic source of income, and the common noun “start-up” is firmly established in everyday life, closely adjacent to such concepts as “doshirak” and “inflation”.

At the same time, according to the senior director of Cisco Christopher Thompson, up to 90% of those starting their own business in Russia fail for various reasons. What role does design play in all of this?

Obvious probable

The priority of the content side of the manufactured product, indicators of its uniqueness, the importance of the idea is undeniable. And is it appropriate to return to the issue of visual design again, if we are talking, say, about an international logistics Internet project or an effective technology to fight cancer?

A website in the style of Web 1.0, sharpened for Netscape Navigator – it would seem that in such cases even the smell of mothballs is unlikely to scare away potential customers, because it is important, necessary, relevant. Or not?

Common statistics of the Discworld: 90% of information about it we perceive with our eyes. An aspiring businessman can dispute the physiological characteristics of Homo Sapiens as much as he pleases – nothing can be done. Moreover, even the simplest operational activity of a sighted person is mediated by the visual analyzer: without looking to fill a glass of water to the brim, without spilling a drop, is a difficult task. And that’s not to mention aesthetics.

However, according to a 2012 study by designer Wells Riley, 78% of market participants, speaking of priority design components, named it aesthetics as the most important. Even though the design doesn’t work, at least make it “beautiful” …

A voice from above

It is mainly the powers that be who insist on the fundamental role of design in a startup. So, according to Eddie Seguela from Oscar Health Insurance, such giants as Wealthfront, Mint, Getaround, simply could not boast of such impressive success, if their management did not appreciate the benefits of rational design of their products.

At the same time, the specialist referred to the key characteristics of effective web design as intuitive navigation, which is unknown to ambiguity, as well as a more or less informal style of communication between the interface and the client. Projects that meet these requirements include Foodspotting, Square and many others.

Yuri Vetrov, a representative of Mail.ru Group, also expressed solidarity with his foreign counterpart. Meanwhile, according to Vetrov, not every startup is capable of increasing the productivity of interaction with customers by improving the design: modernization – read, design minimization – requires a radical reorganization of business processes, including the accompanying and very time-consuming work. The degree of integration of design into the body of its business carrier can be judged only by this.

Summary

Despite the counterarguments, a number of start-up entrepreneurs, especially in the IT field, still wave their hands to questions related to visualization: knowing the language of the technology itself, they forget about the specifics of the one to whom the startup owes its very existence – the client. They forget that the client – the average sighted person – interacts not with the technology at all, but with its graphical interface.

Simple and functional organization of the visual component of the product is the key to a successful startup. Ask someone to hide all the glasses in your house and quenching your thirst will no longer be a natural procedure. Now let’s imagine that the hidden glass is a service of a new startup: how many loans will such a businessman arrange until he understands the obvious?

Author: Denis Strigun