Design Is the Killer App
So you don’t think design plays a part in first impressions? Guess again! A study by researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2012 revealed that it takes two-tenths of a second to form a first impression, give or take a nanosecond. This makes it ever more important, as the ability to obtain good design is proliferating, to ensure that we are doing all we can to acquire that favorable awareness. This really is important for small business, as a poor design will frequently lead to trust issues, an important factor for smaller businesses working to build their brand.
What can you do to promote good design?
The very first thing to do is to give this some thought. The competition has. Possessing a plan for presenting your brand and products to the world is largely accomplished by a carefully thought-out plan. Another critical finding in that study was that your logo gets the most attention, followed closely by images and social interaction. The visual elements matter a tremendous amount! So now that we have an understanding, there are essentially no excuses remaining, as now cost is no longer a viable excuse for getting good design work done. The advent of crowdsourcing sites like 99Designs, CrowdSpring and others made what was once prohibitively expensive for small business, a very affordable item.
How are the benefits?
The benefits of good design in your business are many and sometimes intangible. While a visual redesign of your website is fairly obvious, other items like product packaging, your print and web advertising, and even site graphics are shared, Pinned and ReTweeted from your webpages. We are seeing each day how much this can impact your site’s reach and customer base. What’s more, that special feeling that visitors get when viewing a great design may be hard to quantify, but when your site’s traffic increase and sales increase for no other apparent reason, you’ll be very glad you took a long look at your visual design elements today!