Ugly Design is not (necessarily) Crappy Design

Why “ugly” designs seem to work.

A common argument within tech circles is that Nigerians do not like good design and they point to the continued success and growth of Linda Ikeji’s blog and Nairaland as indicators. What makes for good design? What makes a website usable? Why are seemingly poorly designed products successful?

Hierarchy of Needs
Before I go into the answers, I’ll throw in a bit of psychology. Many people are familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory. The theory says that we all have needs, but some are more important than others and these ones must be satisfied before we start thinking of other needs. The biological needs (food, water, air etc) and safety needs are the most important needs and they have to be met before we can start thinking of other needs such as belonging, esteem, and self actualization(creativity etc). You can read more about the hierarchy of needs theory here and here. There have also been criticisms of the theory which you can read here and here.

How Does This Relate to Design?
When users decide to interact with your product, it’s because they need it to achieve a goal. Good design allows people achieve the task that they want to as quickly and easily as possible. When a user visits/uses your website/app/chatbot/other product, they should be able to accomplish what they set out to do without difficulty.

Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Steven Bradley introduced the Design Hierarchy of Needs

The most important needs are functionality and reliability. Linda Ikeji and Nairaland fulfill those needs. Linda Ikeji’s blog provides gossip (functionality), is updated regularly and the stories are found to be true a lot of the time (reliability).

Why Bother?
Now you’re probably asking yourself: “if people care primarily about functionality, why should I bother with aesthetics?”

If your website is beautiful, but your users can’t easily do what they want to do on it, then it’s pretty much useless.

The picture above is Carelman’s Teapot. If you’re a designer, you’re probably already familiar with it. It is a visually appealing teapot, but it doesn’t allow the user achieve their goal easily. Which means that although it’s pretty, it is badly designed (on the other hand, I think it’ll function well as decor).

So, where do aesthetics come in? What stands you out from your competitors is how your product looks and feels. Androids and iOS devices pretty much have the same functions, but many people prefer Apple because they believe it’s more aesthetically pleasing.

You can have good design that isn’t beautiful, but you definitely can’t have good design that isn’t functional. So when you’re building products ask yourself: “is my design actually functional, or is it just nice colours and pixels?” Is your design truly good or do you just think it is? Can your users do what they need to easily?

TL;DR: Beautiful design is not always good design and good design is not always beautiful.