Jake Przespo

I have been intrigued by design ever since I was little. I would go to the grocery store with my mom and say things like “I don’t want to eat that, the box is ugly!” Today, I still am very interested in design and always striving to know more and more about it.

Whether you think so or not, design has a great influence on what we think about certain things. These things could be anything, from clothing and food to websites and billboards. Design is one of the most apparent qualities that separate one product from another. Let’s take clothes for example. There not one person I could think of personally that would say “I don’t care what the coat looks like, as long as it fits and I’m warm.” I find it very interesting on how much weight design has when choosing a product.

iPhone apps

I notice this happens to me quite a bit when purchasing iPhone apps. Besides the fact that I am a sucker for gorgeous UIs, I usually pick apps based on the design regardless of the price. I obviously choose a group of apps with similar functionality and then use design as my decision maker. Let’s take tip calculators for example. One of the more popular ones, Tipulator by Sophiestication, is $1.99 in the App Store. Why would someone pay $1.99 for the same functionality that a free app has? I believe that for me, and a lot of other people, the design is absolutely worth it.

Tipulator for iPhone (image via App Shopper)

Food

Another good example is food. How come food at some places is more expensive than others? There are other factors like reputation and quality, but it still has to do a lot with design. There was a fairly recent Wendy’s commercial that advertised their new boneless chicken meals. Their selling point was that restaurants will sell the same quality chicken with just more “flair.” I believe this is very true. Restaurants will add more to their presentation to be able to sell their product for a higher price. It works. People pay a premium for the presentation of the food.

Design can’t act alone

Although design has a big impact on decision making, it does need to support a well made product or service. I am a strong believer that design does more than just add “flair” as Wendy’s puts it. It supports the product in a way that engages the user. It makes humans want to use the product more without making them think why.

I’ll end this post with two very good design quotes:

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

— Jeffrey Zeldman

Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

— Steve Jobs

Quotes’ source — Design was here