how to design for comfort
Designing superior audience engagement to drive growth
Sensory overload
The audience of today is frequently overwhelmed. With so much technology at their fingertips to simplify life, how is this possible? In large part, it is because they have so much technology at their fingertips. As information consumers, audiences want for little. They can choose from an essentially limitless supply of content. But what they gain in choice, they lose in something else.
What audiences lack is time. Time to process information and understand direction. Time to evaluate the merits of a message. Time to judge the value of the brand itself. The diminishing window of opportunity to engage with an audience demands an online experience that matches their needs. To meet these expectations, audiences require a higher level of comfort from their digital experiences.
Turning the page
Today’s user is looking for an experience that is effortless. The desired utopia is a comfort that is as intuitive and natural as turning the pages of a book. As the functional capabilities of digital technology continue to grow, the commitment to create experiences that delight must grow with it. Design experts, who understand modern audiences’ time constraints and needs, identify this as a call for a design movement to optimize experiences from every possible perspective. There is also a recognition that businesses must make design a brand imperative, in part because advancements in digital marketing and it’s associated cost are driving the need for economic returns.
Design, the business advantage
At this juncture in digital evolution, customer experience (CX) is inextricably linked to technology, with its ever-expanding capabilities. Digital interfaces can be intimidating to the customer, who is looking for a simple, intuitive experience.¹ Design has come back into the picture—not only as an experience enhancer but also as a differentiator of business success.
More and more companies are turning to design as a business-critical tool. Steve Jobs proved that a well-designed experience can help an organization dominate a market. With Apple setting the example as well as companies like Audi, Capitol One, and Airbnb, others followed. Those who made highly enriched CX a priority and a driving force for investing in design saw their brands stand out in their markets, and ultimately saw significant impact on their businesses.
The Design Management Institute reports that design-driven companies outperformed the
S&P 500 by 219% between 2005 and 2015.² Those same companies were 69% more likely to surpass their business goals in 2017.³ Research by the Forrester group showed that 41% of design-led businesses gained greater market share; 85% of those companies listed design as the critical component of their brand.⁴ An extensive 5-year study of 300 firms by McKinsey observed that companies that thoroughly and deliberately integrated their design function into their business strategy had 32% more revenue and 56% higher returns compared with companies that did not.⁵
Benedict Sheppard, McKinsey partner and head of product development & design in the UK, stated that in recent years, senior business leaders have been requesting help in improving the quality of their product and service design. “It’s getting harder and harder to make products and services stand out from the crowd.”⁵ They recognize that design differentiates.
The most insightful businessmen have known this for decades. In 1973, Thomas J. Watson, the founder instrumental in the growth of IBM into an international force, said “Good design is good business.”⁶ So why haven’t more leaders of industry followed this mindset up until recently?
The design renaissance
This measurable commercial success is a far cry from little over a decade or so ago, when “senior business executives tended to dismiss design as a second-tier function—a matter of aesthetics or corporate image.”⁷ Business paid design lip-service, not really understanding what designers really did, or what impact it could have on revenue. Industries searched for the definition of design. Design had to justify itself, and with good reason. Dieter Rams, the German designer famed for his work with Braun, emphasizes the mutual need—“We designers don’t work in a vacuum. We need business people as well. We are not the fine artists we are often confused with.”⁸
Now design is C-suite. It’s strategically valued. Apple, to no-one’s surprise, as well as 3M, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey, Pepsi, and the City of Los Angeles, have a design expert on their executive board.
Getting comfortable with design
Apple’s success and the insights from the Forrester and McKinsey reports indicate that corporate commitment to design as a business strategy is essential for business success. McKinsey’s Sheppard puts it this way, “People need to make a decision. Are we serious about design, or should we not invest at all? Frankly if you want to do it, you should do it properly.”⁵
Serious about design means tracking design’s impact as diligently as you would track cost and revenue.⁵ Companies who united tracking data and creativity inputs generated revenues 2 times the average rate of the S&P 500.⁷
Additionally, investment in research and development, encouraging early-stage prototyping, and the constant analyzing of product to search for improvement of the user experience has proved essential. For any of these actions to impact revenue, design must work its magic, which requires business commitment and investment. Successful businesses from the McKinsey study achieved this by incentivizing top designers within their cross-functional teams with compensation to retain them and autonomy to fully leverage their talents.⁵
Designing for comfort
With the growing understanding of the importance of design as a business strategy, it is imperative that the significance goes beyond vague understandings as to why.
Good design requires context and a buy-in to the rationales of design’s purpose, so that rather than constantly validating and explaining, designers can focus on generating effective, empathetic solutions and experiences. Understanding user needs is an intrinsic design discipline that improves customer engagement.
In order to design that optimum CX, we need to stand out from the constant hail of information bombarding our audiences, and ease them into an engagement they feel familiar with. So how do we design for that desired level of comfort?
Lose the badges, break down the silos
Creative professionals must lose the conventional badge of designer. Or writer. Or strategist. Our challenge is defining the purpose and desired outcome of the audience connection. The information required must be provided in a way that creates a comfort that initiates choice. We achieve this by transforming information into effective communication that inspires our audience to take the desired action. Hence, the crux of what we strive for, regardless of our badges, is to be proficient communicators.
Connect emotionally
In 2008, the creators of Airbnb (Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia) faced a communication challenge. Their challenge did not revolve around selling a commodity in the traditional sense of the word, but in selling an emotion. They had to design an experience that engendered trust. The typical reaction to the suggestion of allowing perfect strangers into one’s home is the natural alarm of “stranger-danger” — something engrained in many from an early age. How could they change such a natural, habitual mindset so that their audience and investors would buy into their service, despite a deep-set social bias?
The solution was to communicate the trustworthiness of their members through carefully thought-out, well designed online profiles. They designed for trust. Trust provided the comfort for the user to engage.⁹
Connect rationally
Airbnb represents a strong example of designing an experience to evoke an emotional response. But in designing for comfort, we can also design to appeal to the rational response. The best functional experience comes from being comfortable with an interaction that is approachable, understandable, relatable, and actionable. With sufficient research, we can identify the needs of the user audience and provide the desired degree of familiarity. As is almost always the case, less is more. The simpler the experience, the easier it is for the audience to receive and understand the message and its purpose and to fulfill the actions required. This demands a heavy reliance on established design conventions.
The use of appropriate fonts, color, design balance, functional design, information hierarchy, artwork, etc. influences the behavior of the user by providing clear direction, enhancing the accessibility of the information, and increasing legibility.
In a study by Tyton Media, 48% of people stated that the design of a website was their number one factor in determining the credibility of that business. Customers will make up their minds in milliseconds online. The value of a well-designed, professional-looking site cannot be underestimated when considering its impact on customers and one’s business.¹⁰
Use the design language of your brand
Designing for comfort requires an appreciation that even the pure aesthetics of design communicate essential information. They are the visual language of a brand. The brand’s design hallmarks convey the mood, personality, and tone of an experience. They enhance the message and direction, giving the brand voice an accent and persona. By doing so, design helps the audience feel comfortable that they are engaging with a desirable brand whose unique personality distinguishes it from other brand experiences.
In a very competitive landscape, good design helps to capture the desired audience. However, this is not the only commercial advantage. Effective use of brand hallmarks that customers are familiar with creates emotional value, which encourages customers to return to a brand experience again and again.
Be human
Michael Bierut, partner in the renowned design agency Pentagram, notes that renewed recognition of the value of design is “happening in an environment where machine learning and AI promise to threaten to turn what used to be expert design decisions into an endless and perpetual series of instantaneous A/B tests.”⁶ To avoid that threat of design trivialization, or at the very least design’s democratization, design’s value must remain inherently connected to its end user. This humane, empathetic approach puts the experience, the purpose, and creative communication above all else.
“Design must reflect the practical and the aesthetic in business but above all…good design must primarily serve people” concludes Thomas J. Watson.
Design a moral compass
Design can also have positive societal outcomes. The overwhelming clutter and noise in the digital stratosphere has produced inevitable negative impacts on many aspects of society—from mental health to child development, from broken relationships to propagated bigotry to the undermining of democracy itself.¹ This noise pollution has created an environment where positive outcomes for the end user are critical. Utilizing smart design can provide a holistic, productive experience whose benefits extend beyond the individual user.
Keep your users comfortable
When access to technology advantages level off, making two comparable products equal as a result, design becomes the differentiator. Designing the experience that the user feels most comfortable with will separate a business from its competition. In doing so, design is elevated from a nice-to-have to a business imperative. Tom Peters, renowned author on business management practices agrees—“Design may be our top competitive edge”.¹¹
When done well, design is the process of turning information into a critical communication experience, tailored for a specific target audience in order to affect a desired action. Combining emotional tone with clarity of purpose and empathy for the user delivers that complete and memorable experience.
Naoto Fukasawa, Japanese designer and author, known for his product design work with retail company Muji, understands the need to design for what comes naturally. “We have been working to stimulate people’s souls and minds…with actions that human beings make subconsciously…without thought. Design needs to be plugged into the natural human behavior”.¹²
The net result of a well-designed communication is to make an overwhelmed user feel as comfortable with an experience as they would turning the pages of their favorite book. From this will flow the success stories businesses crave.
References
Why design-driven companies cut through to customers. Marketing Tech News. June 27, 2018. https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2018/jun/27/why-design-driven-companies-cut-through-customers.
The value of design. Boston, MA: Design Management Institute. https://www.dmi.org/page/DesignValue/The-Value-of-Design-.htm. Accessed July 2, 2019.
Adobe. 2018 Digital Trends. https://wwwimages2.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/au/landing/DT18/Econsultancy-2018-Digital-Trends.pdf
Forester Research. Design-led firms win the business advantage: A focus on CX strategy and execution reaps rewards. https://landing.adobe.com/dam/downloads/whitepapers/305222.en.forrester.design-led-firms-advantage.pdf
Schwab K. This McKinsey study of 300 companies reveals what every business needs to know about design for 2019. BrandKnew. October 27, 2018. https://www.brandknewmag.com/this-mckinsey-study-of-300-companies-reveals-what-every-business-needs-to-know-about-design-for-2019/.
Quito A. Why are we still arguing for the business value of design? Quartz. October 23, 2018. https://qz.com/1431875/revisiting-ibms-good-design-is-good-business-slogan/
Spanier G. McKinsey: CMOs who use data to inform creativity double revenue growth, Campaign US. June 18, 2018. https://www.campaignlive.com/article/mckinsey-cmos-use-data-inform-creativity-double-revenue-growth/1485239
Rams D. Objectified. A film by Gary Hustwit. Released July 18, 2014
Gebbia J. How Airbnb designs for trust. TED 2016. February 2016. https://www.ted.com/talks/joe_gebbia_how_airbnb_designs_for_trust.
Horvath T. 51 Insane Web Design Statistics. Tyton Media. October 20, 2016. https://www.tytonmedia.com/blog/51-insane-web-design-statistics/
Peters T. In Search of Excellence. January 1, 1982
Fukusawa N. Objectified. A film by Gary Hustwit. Released July 18, 2014