8 ms·

Ask HN: Is it worthwhile for a startup to use a professional designer?

53 points by techiferous 16y ago

A potential client recently asked me this question and I'm interested in the community's opinions on this. Also, this is not really a yes/no question; it's a discussion prompt. :)

sahillavingia 16y ago
Disclosure: I am a designer. YES. The value that a design has in a first impression helps with that first bit of traction so so much. I've had projects fail because of crappy designs, and crappy projects succeed because of - subjectively - great ones. Invest, it's not even that much compared to some of your other costs. Look into students (like me!) who may need the money and the recognition, though don't abuse them.
nostromo 16y ago
Yes. I'm a programmer by night / business type by day. I have a website soon to be released in beta and I hired a designer I trusted (and could afford) from a previous job. She worked wonders for the project -- seeing the new design also reinvigorated me. A few tips: Hire a friend if possible (you'll probably get a friend-rate), if not work by referral. You want someone you can sit with face to face. Avoid 99Designs and the like if you can. Pay your invoices immediately and you'll find the designer will likely continue to be super helpful. Also, get an hourly rate up front since you'll probably find things that need to be adjusted. Lastly, I wouldn't use the designer for HTML, just have them hand off PSDs, the markup tends to be not so good. Insist on PSDs, not flattened images. By the way, I'm happy to give a refferal for a trusted friend. Just email me at juliuss at gmail.
- mattmanser 16y ago
  Any reasons on why to avoid 99designs and ilk?
  - nostromo 16y ago
    If you're looking for a logo or page that will fit in with your existing look and feel, those sites are pretty good. But for me personally, I got a lot more traction by being able to sit with the designer and really give them a sense for what I'm trying to accomplish. So, it really depends on what you need.
  - foleyfoley 16y ago
    Because you are asking the designer to do all the work without the guarantee of getting paid. The result is that you get a crappy product, where as if you just bit the bullet and hired a designer you would get something that you could actually use.
- robertg 16y ago
  Ditto on the PSD advice. There are plenty of PSD to HTML chop shops that will do a much better job slicing and creating standards compliant markup for your site. It ends up costing a little more in the long run, but you also get a better quality product.
  - runningskull 16y ago
    As a designer I would never hand over my designs to one of those chop shops. Any designer worth his salt can code his own designs. I don't trust the psd2html services to give me high-quality, semantic, robust markup and CSS.
    - nostromo 16y ago
      You're probably more talented than you realize, but I wouldn't expect all designers to know html. I know a few designers that are amazing, but clueless with html. I think the skills are quite often mutually exclusive -- which is a good thing for you as the exception.
      - hansef 16y ago
        I've met a few talented web designers who don't grok html, javascript and css, but (so far) no product ux designers. Depending on the type of product you're building, someone like this may be exactly who you really need. Working with a good ux designer will completely change your understanding of the role of design in product development. They can play a pivotal role in defining and shaping your product. And yes, a person with these qualities almost invariably can also code. Understanding the underpinning technologies of the web remains nearly inextricably entwined with understanding the design potential of the web. As an aside, I think a platonic ideal founding team would have 2-3 people who share varying degrees of business, design and technical acumen. Each person has a defined role, but they also relate to their co-founders' roles in a meaningful way. Really understanding what it means to be GREAT at something often requires educating yourself enough to become mediocre at it. Completely partitioned specialization is for companies big enough to need HR departments.
      - deleted 16y ago
- gbrindisi 16y ago
  Making webdesign with Photoshop is old school, in my opinion. Modern webdesign is no more a mask to apply to your html, it's the entire front end side: you'll have to deal with markup, CSS and javascript. Also, the majority of professional webdesigner out there are starting prototype with CSS.
limedaring 16y ago
Am also a designer. v1? Just get the damn thing out. Don't worry about whether it has the perfect design or interactions at this point since the hardest part is simply launching (and you're going to change your idea/design once you get feedback anyways). After that, I believe a designer is invaluable, for taking user feedback and results and crafting the product into something that promotes more sales/views.
devmonk 16y ago
Yes. Shop around just like anything else. But, you'll be even better off if you have someone with good design skills working for you if you plan to be able to do revisions, ongoing changes. I worked for a small company that outsourced some design for logo, but ended up hiring someone full-time to do photography and design. It was a bold step since they were a telecom company, but the polish and sheer amount of the work by having someone in-house differentiate them from their competitor. At first I thought they were foolish (for years actually), but now that he is still working there, and seeing where they are, it was sheer genius to have hired him.
iampims 16y ago
If you're building a search engine, better get a UX guy. If you're building a photo sharing site, better get a UX guy. If you're building a social app, then hell yes, get a UX guy AND a designer.
- techiferous 16y ago
  Thanks. Would you mind elaborating more on the difference between UX and design? And how each can help a startup achieve its business goals?
  - iampims 16y ago
    I'm afraid I won't be able to accurately formulate the difference between both. I'll refer you to the wikipedia entry of User Experience Design [1] which will do a much better job than I could. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design
  - replicatorblog 16y ago
    We have both roles in our company - A UX designer is largely focused on how things work. If I press "X" button what happens? Should the input method for this app be a number pad or a scroll wheel? etc. A graphic/visual designer is focused on how the app looks. What are the feelings this app is trying to evoke? Does it have a rough "hacker" look or is this something Martha Stewart devotees would like? These are rough generalizations along a spectrum. Some UX designers are more product manager types, interested in specifying features and high level behaviors leaving implementation level wireframes to a designer or engineer. Some graphic designers also like to get involved in the feature selection/design. It really varies by person, but its important to understand what you need before you hire. Nothing worse than trying to get slick graphics from someone whose passion is task analysis or strategic input from someone who loves polishing pixels.
jbail 16y ago
No. ...assuming the startup is bootstrapping. Why? 1) Ugly designs are often very effective. 2) You can polish it later when you're making money. Your site might look amazing. Your site might look crappy. If no one knows about your site or no one cares, then it doesn't matter either way. Focus on traction for the product or service you're providing, then worry about the design of your letterhead, business cards, shiny web 2.0 logo, etc.
- anateus 16y ago
  I think this hits the crux of the problem but not directly: An ugly design that works is actually a good design. Several people in this thread make the point that design isn't just the veneer, but definitely the whole user experience. But sometimes people confuse "looking pretty" with "well designed". Those often go hand-in-hand, but not always, which is very important to keep in mind. It's easy for folks who are used to conflating the two to accept a good looking design because it looks good, rather than it working well for the user.
- kranner 16y ago
  Can you explain number 1 please? I'm hoping it's true because I'm bootstrapping an app that's on the ugly side. I've been told the product and workflow are solid but that the amateur design will hurt conversions. It's a B2B product. Personally I think the ugly design will filter out some tire-kickers (which is good because the product is somewhat compute-intensive) but anyone who knows they need the product will not be deterred. Of course I could be biased. I'd like to add that I don't intend to keep it ugly, but I'm hoping to see some revenue first.
  - kiddo 16y ago
    examples of #1 - craigslist and plentyoffish
    - fakelvis 16y ago
      Anecdotes do not equal proof. I agree that ugly design can help certain businesses (think landing pages) but wouldn't use a couple of examples as proof of this (mainly because the opposite is likely to be more accurate).
KevinMS 16y ago
I'd like to know the answer to this also, but after reading the comments I'm still clueless. Maybe this will help - Has anybody dared to do any A/B testing on professional vs "unprofessional" design?
- dasil003 16y ago
  It's not really a variable that can be isolated in any effective way. If you did a massive test across 1000s of sites you might be able to extract some useful data, but even then I think the psychological effect varies quite a bit depending on what kind of site it is to begin with.
- bmelton 16y ago
  I think that in almost all cases, the 'professional' design is going to perform better -- where I think you'll find the conflict in advice is whether or not it's worth it to spend the expense on an untested idea. If the idea holds enough water, it doesn't NEED a good design (re: Craigslist, tarsnap, the original Digg, etc.) -- it just needs to work. If it works, and you can prove there's a business there, then by all means, spend the money to make it perform as well as you possibly can. Design in this sense is an 'optimization' technique, not part of the core product. The flip side, is if you have a horrible idea, and you spend $10k on design, you've effectively thrown that money away. The exceptions to this, of course, are in the demographic. If your target market is web designers, they're going to be hypercritical of any design, so it needs to excel from day 1. If your startup is an iPhone app, same thing. Otherwise, most people will be forgiving of a spartan design, so long as the damn thing works, and that'll give you leverage to design against. Also, another big point in this is that as you build the product, you'll change how things work, a lot. In the application I'm building now, I had Photoshop mockups for every page, and how I thought they would look, but in the initial testing, I've changed almost every page somewhat dramatically. It costs me time, which I hate, but it's better than costing me time AND dollars I'd have to pay a professional designer to re-design because I changed the position of button x. And, while I hate having to re-implement, I'd much rather not move into production with button x in the wrong place because I couldn't afford to pay a designer to move it.
- pchristensen 16y ago
jbarham 16y ago
Yes, definitely. A well-designed and aesthetically pleasing site adds instant credibility, especially for people who are non-technical (i.e., the people who often make the final buy/no-buy decision). And it's rare for a strong systems or web back-end programmer to also have a good design sense and to be versed in the various rendering quirks and workarounds for the common browsers. Note that it doesn't mean you have to hire a full-time designer. A lot of designers are freelancers, and like it that way. 37signals' Sortfolio (http://www.sortfolio.com/ http://www.sortfolio.com/) lists a lot of independent designers for a range of budgets.
vaksel 16y ago
well you do need a good design, the web has matured...if your site looks like crap people will leave. but you don't need a designer for that. 1. istockphoto gets you a ton of illustrations that you can use to spice up your pages. 2. 99designs gets you a good logo or any other custom work you need. Some people will knock 99designs...and yes the quality may be worse than one you'd get from a top of the line designer. But it'll be miles ahead of what you can achieve on your own, and you'll get to avoid paying thousands for a logo. from my experience, a single illustration can turn a boring and bland page into something that's decent.
- tofumatt 16y ago
  The real issue with sites like 99designs isn't the quality (though it IS mostly terrible), it's the _consistency_. If you're getting a bunch of different designers to design you something over their lunch break with no interest in or knowledge of your company/goals, you're gonna get something different every time. Seriously, skip the kids at 99designs and hire a local freelance designer. Maybe you can get lucky and guarantee them [X] number of hours a month in exchange for a lower rate.
  - vaksel 16y ago
    you are forgetting that we are talking about a startup here...they can't afford $12K for a designer. And who cares about consistency..it's just something to use for a few months until the site gets profitable to get someone good. You just don't want something that looks like crap. And you can always just use the one person whose design you picked for more work. And it's not like you are guaranteed good stuff from a local designer...plenty of them are worse than the "kids" at 99 designs.
    - foleyfoley 16y ago
      I think if you actually screen who you hire you will find someone who cares about their work, is talented, and will understand you are a start up and charge accordingly.
togasystems 16y ago
If you want people to start taking you seriously, then YES! I have been turned off on a number of occasions by the lack of a professional design. You could probably scrape by, by getting a free theme from the intertubes, but what about your logo/branding. Go to your local college and post something for a design job. You will get a ton of replies and it probably won't cost you that much.
edanm 16y ago
It depends. Firstly, what stage of a startup are we talking about? Are we talking a guy building just a landing page? Are we talking a 20-person team with VC? The answer is different for each case, both because of the money available, but also because of how much that design will end up being used. A landing page that might never lead to a product shouldn't cost you $1,000. I haven't had much experience on the later stages of a startup, but I have built a few products to the beginning stages. Early on, I made the mistake of building the product without a design first thing. I figured, if it gets good feedback, I can alway redesign it. Instead, what I would do today if I were building any product is go buy a template for $50, and work off that. Saves a lot of redesign time (which is harder to do, since you've already got legacy code). Also, gets you the "good design first impression" right off the bat, which will lead to more accurate results when you need them the most (since you really don't know if the product will be a success or not). For a landing page, which you should do before building a product (unless the product is really simple), I've recently learned the best way. Go to WooThemes.com or ThemeForest.com, buy a WordPress template for $70, and it will make setting up your landing page a Wysiwyg experience, which is much better. Even if you're a programmer like me, trust me on this, using WordPress will make things smoother, and the design will be better for it. As for an actual startup with an actual product (and money in the bank), I wouldn't even think twice: hire a designer.
leftnode 16y ago
I am a programmer starting my own business. I pretend to be a designer, but when it comes down to it, I'm really lost. I've tried the ThemeForest/WooThemes route for nice templates. While they have some beautiful templates, they'll still need customization that I can't do. Suck it up, find a good designer and pay them well. I'm glad I did.
fjabre 16y ago
<plug>I hired some pro designers for my site: http://www.hobsonfiles.com http://www.hobsonfiles.com </plug> One thing to keep in mind: No matter how good your design is, it is no match for an ugly site with a really useful feature..
jeffclark 16y ago
Definitely. A designer does more than just make pretty pictures. Ugly or not (the art, not the designer), a designer actually will help design the usability of the site at the same time so that you can grow. A good designer knows where to put the little calls-to-action and the email signup forms and all that so that you can meet your business goals. It's definitely worthwhile to get a professional designer.
replicatorblog 16y ago
I think the better strategy is to infuse your organization with design thinking. AirBnB has been one of YC's best recent performers and 2/3 of their founding team are designers. To quote Steve Jobs: In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. So if your goal is to make something consumer facing or where the user is key in your thinking don't use a professional designer, make one a co-founder. I think design is wildly underutilized and 1 good design hire can be worth 5-10 engineers at the early stage. This may sound heretical, but a good designer can make UX decisions that have massive impact across a site, but piggy back on pre-existing engineering tasks. This doesn't scale though. 10 designers aren't equal to 10 engineers. That said, if you are creating some B2B product that doesn't have a lot of meaningful user interaction, the value exchange is simple, or there aren't a lot of competitive solutions (web or otherwise) then piece something together via woothemes and 99 designs, or make friends with a good designer.
- bretthellman 16y ago
  well said
kqueue 16y ago
I think finding a good designer willing to work on your project is the most difficult part of the whole project. Focusing on what you do best (programming) and subcontracting what you do worst (design) leads to a great product imho. If you end up doing both, you'll eventually lose motivation because you'll never get satisfied with your own designs (you are not a designer after all). Not to mention that you'll be shifting focus back and forth between design/programming, and each one requires a different kind of focus and way of thinking. The end product if it sees the light? Mediocre at best.
swalberg 16y ago
"Worthwhile", I don't know. I guess it depends on what your product is supposed to do. My product is http://smallpayroll.ca http://smallpayroll.ca, it's a do it yourself payroll site made for people who don't know anything about payroll. I freely admit it looks like crap. But of the handful of people that have tried it out and paid for it, I haven't heard "this looks like crap". What I hear is "this product makes my life so much easier" Could I get more conversions with a better design? Maybe... But I know for my product it's not preventing me from getting paying customers. (As an aside, I've often thought there should be a place for people like us to find designers that know how to work with applications instead of just designing web pages.)
- techiferous 16y ago
  Your design definitely doesn't fall into the "looks like crap" category. These sites fall into the "crap" category: http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ http://www.sporcle.com/ http://www.sporcle.com/ Your site strikes me as in the "good enough" category. The design isn't anything special, either good or bad. This means that there is nothing bad about the design to bring your product down and I think it also means that the law of diminishing returns may apply to putting resources into making the design better.
- cemregr 16y ago
  The green CTA isn't very readable. Making it a bit darker with a contrasting text color (black) would assumingly increase conversion :)
anonymous236 16y ago
Actual user review I once received - "Even though I could not start your program on my Windows 98, I still give it 4 out of 5 stars, because it looks awesome" (on screenshots). So, yes, design matters :)
wdavidturner 16y ago
Yes-ish. If it takes too much of your time to produce anything that looks/feel reasonable, then hire one. If you think you can get by doing it yourself, then make it so. If you have enough chops to get by, but don't know where to start, yes - then start tweeking stuff yourself. try to stick to something simple and clear that lets users know what they're doing next.
slvrspoon 16y ago
Almost always, the simple answer is No, and i've been there. 95% of good design for any initial project must come from the full time team who cares enough to solve the problem. designers outsourced and who swoop in and redesign everything in wireframes (UX) or PSD's for full design just won't deliver because they can't. they don't own the problem. they can fix the obvious, they can make colors and layout harmonious, but that's not what real design's about.
iuguy 16y ago
Yes, but get one you can trust. If you're just starting out, try to find someone local that you can work with. Look at what they've done before and try them out on something small. Most local designers will quite happily do a small project a month for you, which will ease your burn rate. For web sites for a startup, Themeforest is the way to go. A small amount of cash gets you a theme that you can use for your MVP, redesign once you're profitable and know how much you can spend.
mynameisraj 16y ago
I'm a designer myself, but I'm confused at what the question is asking. A designer can be many things. You can hire an interaction designer. You can hire an interface designer. You can hire a website designer. I am going to assume you are speaking about an interface/web designer. Yes is the answer. When it comes down to it, your end users are probably going to avoid your service if they don't think it looks good. The amount of traffic you'd gain with a good design easily justifies the price of hiring a good designer. Now, the other thing is the word 'professional'. Professionals are very expensive. You're talking at least 10 thousand dollars for a decent project. If you go with someone who's a student or the like (cough), you'll get a better rate, but you won't get the timeline that a startup might need. There's the other issue. If it's not going to repay itself in traffic easily, then it's not worth it. In most cases, will it? Of course. The other option is DIY. If you take some time and learn your shit, you can usually do something that doesn't look half-assed. Now, moving on to the HTML bit. I do both. Many designers do both. Plain and simple: if you don't know markup, you shouldn't make mockups.
giffc 16y ago
It depends on stage and context of product. In the earliest days, I think whoever owns "customer development" should also own the UX. It doesn't need to be beautiful, just good enough (that's where context of product comes in -- it defines "good enough" -- a product for engineers will have different requirements than one for grandparents). The trouble with using free time from a friend is 1. by being free, it is harder to give blunt feedback; 2. by being a favor, you are beholden to their schedule, and can they really keep up with your pace of iteration and learning based on customer development? It can put strain on friendships. So in the earliest days I say try to DIY unless you really don't have a design bone in your body. Use paper and Balsamiq to sketch, and examine what you like and dislike of comparable products. You can always hire a professional designer later to come in and help once you feel confident that you are close to the right product for the right customer.

53 points by techiferous 16y ago

A potential client recently asked me this question and I'm interested in the community's opinions on this. Also, this is not really a yes/no question; it's a discussion prompt. :)

sahillavingia 16y ago

Disclosure: I am a designer. YES. The value that a design has in a first impression helps with that first bit of traction so so much. I've had projects fail because of crappy designs, and crappy projects succeed because of - subjectively - great ones. Invest, it's not even that much compared to some of your other costs. Look into students (like me!) who may need the money and the recognition, though don't abuse them.

nostromo 16y ago

Yes. I'm a programmer by night / business type by day. I have a website soon to be released in beta and I hired a designer I trusted (and could afford) from a previous job. She worked wonders for the project -- seeing the new design also reinvigorated me. A few tips: Hire a friend if possible (you'll probably get a friend-rate), if not work by referral. You want someone you can sit with face to face. Avoid 99Designs and the like if you can. Pay your invoices immediately and you'll find the designer will likely continue to be super helpful. Also, get an hourly rate up front since you'll probably find things that need to be adjusted. Lastly, I wouldn't use the designer for HTML, just have them hand off PSDs, the markup tends to be not so good. Insist on PSDs, not flattened images. By the way, I'm happy to give a refferal for a trusted friend. Just email me at juliuss at gmail.

mattmanser 16y ago
Any reasons on why to avoid 99designs and ilk?
- nostromo 16y ago
  If you're looking for a logo or page that will fit in with your existing look and feel, those sites are pretty good. But for me personally, I got a lot more traction by being able to sit with the designer and really give them a sense for what I'm trying to accomplish. So, it really depends on what you need.
- foleyfoley 16y ago
  Because you are asking the designer to do all the work without the guarantee of getting paid. The result is that you get a crappy product, where as if you just bit the bullet and hired a designer you would get something that you could actually use.
robertg 16y ago
Ditto on the PSD advice. There are plenty of PSD to HTML chop shops that will do a much better job slicing and creating standards compliant markup for your site. It ends up costing a little more in the long run, but you also get a better quality product.
- runningskull 16y ago
  As a designer I would never hand over my designs to one of those chop shops. Any designer worth his salt can code his own designs. I don't trust the psd2html services to give me high-quality, semantic, robust markup and CSS.
  - nostromo 16y ago
    You're probably more talented than you realize, but I wouldn't expect all designers to know html. I know a few designers that are amazing, but clueless with html. I think the skills are quite often mutually exclusive -- which is a good thing for you as the exception.
    - hansef 16y ago
      I've met a few talented web designers who don't grok html, javascript and css, but (so far) no product ux designers. Depending on the type of product you're building, someone like this may be exactly who you really need. Working with a good ux designer will completely change your understanding of the role of design in product development. They can play a pivotal role in defining and shaping your product. And yes, a person with these qualities almost invariably can also code. Understanding the underpinning technologies of the web remains nearly inextricably entwined with understanding the design potential of the web. As an aside, I think a platonic ideal founding team would have 2-3 people who share varying degrees of business, design and technical acumen. Each person has a defined role, but they also relate to their co-founders' roles in a meaningful way. Really understanding what it means to be GREAT at something often requires educating yourself enough to become mediocre at it. Completely partitioned specialization is for companies big enough to need HR departments.
    - deleted 16y ago
gbrindisi 16y ago
Making webdesign with Photoshop is old school, in my opinion. Modern webdesign is no more a mask to apply to your html, it's the entire front end side: you'll have to deal with markup, CSS and javascript. Also, the majority of professional webdesigner out there are starting prototype with CSS.

limedaring 16y ago

Am also a designer. v1? Just get the damn thing out. Don't worry about whether it has the perfect design or interactions at this point since the hardest part is simply launching (and you're going to change your idea/design once you get feedback anyways). After that, I believe a designer is invaluable, for taking user feedback and results and crafting the product into something that promotes more sales/views.

devmonk 16y ago

Yes. Shop around just like anything else. But, you'll be even better off if you have someone with good design skills working for you if you plan to be able to do revisions, ongoing changes. I worked for a small company that outsourced some design for logo, but ended up hiring someone full-time to do photography and design. It was a bold step since they were a telecom company, but the polish and sheer amount of the work by having someone in-house differentiate them from their competitor. At first I thought they were foolish (for years actually), but now that he is still working there, and seeing where they are, it was sheer genius to have hired him.

iampims 16y ago

If you're building a search engine, better get a UX guy. If you're building a photo sharing site, better get a UX guy. If you're building a social app, then hell yes, get a UX guy AND a designer.

techiferous 16y ago
Thanks. Would you mind elaborating more on the difference between UX and design? And how each can help a startup achieve its business goals?
- iampims 16y ago
  I'm afraid I won't be able to accurately formulate the difference between both. I'll refer you to the wikipedia entry of User Experience Design [1] which will do a much better job than I could. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design
- replicatorblog 16y ago
  We have both roles in our company - A UX designer is largely focused on how things work. If I press "X" button what happens? Should the input method for this app be a number pad or a scroll wheel? etc. A graphic/visual designer is focused on how the app looks. What are the feelings this app is trying to evoke? Does it have a rough "hacker" look or is this something Martha Stewart devotees would like? These are rough generalizations along a spectrum. Some UX designers are more product manager types, interested in specifying features and high level behaviors leaving implementation level wireframes to a designer or engineer. Some graphic designers also like to get involved in the feature selection/design. It really varies by person, but its important to understand what you need before you hire. Nothing worse than trying to get slick graphics from someone whose passion is task analysis or strategic input from someone who loves polishing pixels.

jbail 16y ago

No. ...assuming the startup is bootstrapping. Why? 1) Ugly designs are often very effective. 2) You can polish it later when you're making money. Your site might look amazing. Your site might look crappy. If no one knows about your site or no one cares, then it doesn't matter either way. Focus on traction for the product or service you're providing, then worry about the design of your letterhead, business cards, shiny web 2.0 logo, etc.

anateus 16y ago
I think this hits the crux of the problem but not directly: An ugly design that works is actually a good design. Several people in this thread make the point that design isn't just the veneer, but definitely the whole user experience. But sometimes people confuse "looking pretty" with "well designed". Those often go hand-in-hand, but not always, which is very important to keep in mind. It's easy for folks who are used to conflating the two to accept a good looking design because it looks good, rather than it working well for the user.
kranner 16y ago
Can you explain number 1 please? I'm hoping it's true because I'm bootstrapping an app that's on the ugly side. I've been told the product and workflow are solid but that the amateur design will hurt conversions. It's a B2B product. Personally I think the ugly design will filter out some tire-kickers (which is good because the product is somewhat compute-intensive) but anyone who knows they need the product will not be deterred. Of course I could be biased. I'd like to add that I don't intend to keep it ugly, but I'm hoping to see some revenue first.
- kiddo 16y ago
  examples of #1 - craigslist and plentyoffish
  - fakelvis 16y ago
    Anecdotes do not equal proof. I agree that ugly design can help certain businesses (think landing pages) but wouldn't use a couple of examples as proof of this (mainly because the opposite is likely to be more accurate).

KevinMS 16y ago

I'd like to know the answer to this also, but after reading the comments I'm still clueless. Maybe this will help - Has anybody dared to do any A/B testing on professional vs "unprofessional" design?

dasil003 16y ago
It's not really a variable that can be isolated in any effective way. If you did a massive test across 1000s of sites you might be able to extract some useful data, but even then I think the psychological effect varies quite a bit depending on what kind of site it is to begin with.
bmelton 16y ago
I think that in almost all cases, the 'professional' design is going to perform better -- where I think you'll find the conflict in advice is whether or not it's worth it to spend the expense on an untested idea. If the idea holds enough water, it doesn't NEED a good design (re: Craigslist, tarsnap, the original Digg, etc.) -- it just needs to work. If it works, and you can prove there's a business there, then by all means, spend the money to make it perform as well as you possibly can. Design in this sense is an 'optimization' technique, not part of the core product. The flip side, is if you have a horrible idea, and you spend $10k on design, you've effectively thrown that money away. The exceptions to this, of course, are in the demographic. If your target market is web designers, they're going to be hypercritical of any design, so it needs to excel from day 1. If your startup is an iPhone app, same thing. Otherwise, most people will be forgiving of a spartan design, so long as the damn thing works, and that'll give you leverage to design against. Also, another big point in this is that as you build the product, you'll change how things work, a lot. In the application I'm building now, I had Photoshop mockups for every page, and how I thought they would look, but in the initial testing, I've changed almost every page somewhat dramatically. It costs me time, which I hate, but it's better than costing me time AND dollars I'd have to pay a professional designer to re-design because I changed the position of button x. And, while I hate having to re-implement, I'd much rather not move into production with button x in the wrong place because I couldn't afford to pay a designer to move it.
pchristensen 16y ago

jbarham 16y ago

Yes, definitely. A well-designed and aesthetically pleasing site adds instant credibility, especially for people who are non-technical (i.e., the people who often make the final buy/no-buy decision). And it's rare for a strong systems or web back-end programmer to also have a good design sense and to be versed in the various rendering quirks and workarounds for the common browsers. Note that it doesn't mean you have to hire a full-time designer. A lot of designers are freelancers, and like it that way. 37signals' Sortfolio (http://www.sortfolio.com/ http://www.sortfolio.com/) lists a lot of independent designers for a range of budgets.

vaksel 16y ago

well you do need a good design, the web has matured...if your site looks like crap people will leave. but you don't need a designer for that. 1. istockphoto gets you a ton of illustrations that you can use to spice up your pages. 2. 99designs gets you a good logo or any other custom work you need. Some people will knock 99designs...and yes the quality may be worse than one you'd get from a top of the line designer. But it'll be miles ahead of what you can achieve on your own, and you'll get to avoid paying thousands for a logo. from my experience, a single illustration can turn a boring and bland page into something that's decent.

tofumatt 16y ago
The real issue with sites like 99designs isn't the quality (though it IS mostly terrible), it's the _consistency_. If you're getting a bunch of different designers to design you something over their lunch break with no interest in or knowledge of your company/goals, you're gonna get something different every time. Seriously, skip the kids at 99designs and hire a local freelance designer. Maybe you can get lucky and guarantee them [X] number of hours a month in exchange for a lower rate.
- vaksel 16y ago
  you are forgetting that we are talking about a startup here...they can't afford $12K for a designer. And who cares about consistency..it's just something to use for a few months until the site gets profitable to get someone good. You just don't want something that looks like crap. And you can always just use the one person whose design you picked for more work. And it's not like you are guaranteed good stuff from a local designer...plenty of them are worse than the "kids" at 99 designs.
  - foleyfoley 16y ago
    I think if you actually screen who you hire you will find someone who cares about their work, is talented, and will understand you are a start up and charge accordingly.

togasystems 16y ago

If you want people to start taking you seriously, then YES! I have been turned off on a number of occasions by the lack of a professional design. You could probably scrape by, by getting a free theme from the intertubes, but what about your logo/branding. Go to your local college and post something for a design job. You will get a ton of replies and it probably won't cost you that much.

edanm 16y ago

It depends. Firstly, what stage of a startup are we talking about? Are we talking a guy building just a landing page? Are we talking a 20-person team with VC? The answer is different for each case, both because of the money available, but also because of how much that design will end up being used. A landing page that might never lead to a product shouldn't cost you $1,000. I haven't had much experience on the later stages of a startup, but I have built a few products to the beginning stages. Early on, I made the mistake of building the product without a design first thing. I figured, if it gets good feedback, I can alway redesign it. Instead, what I would do today if I were building any product is go buy a template for $50, and work off that. Saves a lot of redesign time (which is harder to do, since you've already got legacy code). Also, gets you the "good design first impression" right off the bat, which will lead to more accurate results when you need them the most (since you really don't know if the product will be a success or not). For a landing page, which you should do before building a product (unless the product is really simple), I've recently learned the best way. Go to WooThemes.com or ThemeForest.com, buy a WordPress template for $70, and it will make setting up your landing page a Wysiwyg experience, which is much better. Even if you're a programmer like me, trust me on this, using WordPress will make things smoother, and the design will be better for it. As for an actual startup with an actual product (and money in the bank), I wouldn't even think twice: hire a designer.

leftnode 16y ago

I am a programmer starting my own business. I pretend to be a designer, but when it comes down to it, I'm really lost. I've tried the ThemeForest/WooThemes route for nice templates. While they have some beautiful templates, they'll still need customization that I can't do. Suck it up, find a good designer and pay them well. I'm glad I did.

fjabre 16y ago

<plug>I hired some pro designers for my site: http://www.hobsonfiles.com http://www.hobsonfiles.com </plug> One thing to keep in mind: No matter how good your design is, it is no match for an ugly site with a really useful feature..

jeffclark 16y ago

Definitely. A designer does more than just make pretty pictures. Ugly or not (the art, not the designer), a designer actually will help design the usability of the site at the same time so that you can grow. A good designer knows where to put the little calls-to-action and the email signup forms and all that so that you can meet your business goals. It's definitely worthwhile to get a professional designer.

replicatorblog 16y ago

I think the better strategy is to infuse your organization with design thinking. AirBnB has been one of YC's best recent performers and 2/3 of their founding team are designers. To quote Steve Jobs: In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. So if your goal is to make something consumer facing or where the user is key in your thinking don't use a professional designer, make one a co-founder. I think design is wildly underutilized and 1 good design hire can be worth 5-10 engineers at the early stage. This may sound heretical, but a good designer can make UX decisions that have massive impact across a site, but piggy back on pre-existing engineering tasks. This doesn't scale though. 10 designers aren't equal to 10 engineers. That said, if you are creating some B2B product that doesn't have a lot of meaningful user interaction, the value exchange is simple, or there aren't a lot of competitive solutions (web or otherwise) then piece something together via woothemes and 99 designs, or make friends with a good designer.

bretthellman 16y ago
well said

kqueue 16y ago

I think finding a good designer willing to work on your project is the most difficult part of the whole project. Focusing on what you do best (programming) and subcontracting what you do worst (design) leads to a great product imho. If you end up doing both, you'll eventually lose motivation because you'll never get satisfied with your own designs (you are not a designer after all). Not to mention that you'll be shifting focus back and forth between design/programming, and each one requires a different kind of focus and way of thinking. The end product if it sees the light? Mediocre at best.

swalberg 16y ago

"Worthwhile", I don't know. I guess it depends on what your product is supposed to do. My product is http://smallpayroll.ca http://smallpayroll.ca, it's a do it yourself payroll site made for people who don't know anything about payroll. I freely admit it looks like crap. But of the handful of people that have tried it out and paid for it, I haven't heard "this looks like crap". What I hear is "this product makes my life so much easier" Could I get more conversions with a better design? Maybe... But I know for my product it's not preventing me from getting paying customers. (As an aside, I've often thought there should be a place for people like us to find designers that know how to work with applications instead of just designing web pages.)

techiferous 16y ago
Your design definitely doesn't fall into the "looks like crap" category. These sites fall into the "crap" category: http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ http://www.sporcle.com/ http://www.sporcle.com/ Your site strikes me as in the "good enough" category. The design isn't anything special, either good or bad. This means that there is nothing bad about the design to bring your product down and I think it also means that the law of diminishing returns may apply to putting resources into making the design better.
cemregr 16y ago
The green CTA isn't very readable. Making it a bit darker with a contrasting text color (black) would assumingly increase conversion :)

anonymous236 16y ago

Actual user review I once received - "Even though I could not start your program on my Windows 98, I still give it 4 out of 5 stars, because it looks awesome" (on screenshots). So, yes, design matters :)

wdavidturner 16y ago

Yes-ish. If it takes too much of your time to produce anything that looks/feel reasonable, then hire one. If you think you can get by doing it yourself, then make it so. If you have enough chops to get by, but don't know where to start, yes - then start tweeking stuff yourself. try to stick to something simple and clear that lets users know what they're doing next.

slvrspoon 16y ago

Almost always, the simple answer is No, and i've been there. 95% of good design for any initial project must come from the full time team who cares enough to solve the problem. designers outsourced and who swoop in and redesign everything in wireframes (UX) or PSD's for full design just won't deliver because they can't. they don't own the problem. they can fix the obvious, they can make colors and layout harmonious, but that's not what real design's about.

iuguy 16y ago

Yes, but get one you can trust. If you're just starting out, try to find someone local that you can work with. Look at what they've done before and try them out on something small. Most local designers will quite happily do a small project a month for you, which will ease your burn rate. For web sites for a startup, Themeforest is the way to go. A small amount of cash gets you a theme that you can use for your MVP, redesign once you're profitable and know how much you can spend.

mynameisraj 16y ago

I'm a designer myself, but I'm confused at what the question is asking. A designer can be many things. You can hire an interaction designer. You can hire an interface designer. You can hire a website designer. I am going to assume you are speaking about an interface/web designer. Yes is the answer. When it comes down to it, your end users are probably going to avoid your service if they don't think it looks good. The amount of traffic you'd gain with a good design easily justifies the price of hiring a good designer. Now, the other thing is the word 'professional'. Professionals are very expensive. You're talking at least 10 thousand dollars for a decent project. If you go with someone who's a student or the like (cough), you'll get a better rate, but you won't get the timeline that a startup might need. There's the other issue. If it's not going to repay itself in traffic easily, then it's not worth it. In most cases, will it? Of course. The other option is DIY. If you take some time and learn your shit, you can usually do something that doesn't look half-assed. Now, moving on to the HTML bit. I do both. Many designers do both. Plain and simple: if you don't know markup, you shouldn't make mockups.

giffc 16y ago

It depends on stage and context of product. In the earliest days, I think whoever owns "customer development" should also own the UX. It doesn't need to be beautiful, just good enough (that's where context of product comes in -- it defines "good enough" -- a product for engineers will have different requirements than one for grandparents). The trouble with using free time from a friend is 1. by being free, it is harder to give blunt feedback; 2. by being a favor, you are beholden to their schedule, and can they really keep up with your pace of iteration and learning based on customer development? It can put strain on friendships. So in the earliest days I say try to DIY unless you really don't have a design bone in your body. Use paper and Balsamiq to sketch, and examine what you like and dislike of comparable products. You can always hire a professional designer later to come in and help once you feel confident that you are close to the right product for the right customer.