5 design mistakes any startup can make and how to avoid them
‘The main mistake of startups is that they’re doing design!’ — that could be the whole article, however unpractical that may sound. Nevertheless, if you are dead set on doing design in you startup, this article will help you avoid common mistakes while trying to establish a business. Most important mistakes come first, from the standpoint of formulating a startup idea.
01. Thinking that design is about the looks
The biggest mistake is to consider only visual pat of the design: logo, colors, website. Do not be a fashion victim, fashion is a subject of constant change. There is only one thing design should help a startup with — bring in clients that will pay for it.
This said, design should solely focus on delivering a unique idea of the startup to the potential customers, brought in via traffic channels. This can be done with a variety of methods — use ThemeForest templates or try Bootstrap directly, anything goes. More on Bootstrap: when your idea starts to make money, you can easily adjust the design without coding everything from scratch.
Bad: you start your endeavour by paying for branding and ordering a website from the agency.
Good: you realise what solution you are trying to sell and make the simplest landing page using free tools and minimal resources. Any related problems can de solved later, if the project will prove its feasible.
02. Making programmers do art
Main mistake a developer can make is start learning new tools (Photoshop, Premiere, Sketch, etc.) in an attempt to make a new product. It literally takes years to master those tools at the plausible level, and idea has a very high chance of being redundant by the time you do. That said if you are making a product that absolutely needs visual design (e.g. video game) — find co-founders with the skills needed. Don’t be shy to aim for those that already have recognition, people like business and growth opportunities. If your products does not require visual design, don’t bother and do what you do best.
Good startup creates a buggy, barely working product, that gets recognition despite its worst qualities, because it solves some problem way better than anything else. This is the only type of startup that can survive, as when investments come — bugs go away, and it can literally take over the world.
Bad: you study Photoshop, draw buttons for your iOS app, never like the results and waste your time on endless tutorials.
Good: you took the design from free templates on Behance and moved on.
03. Trying to say everything at once
Today, users are overflown with information. We consume so much content, our brains can barely get anything useful out of it. To protect our consciousness, we learned to deny innovation and ignore information that does not fit into our world view.
We deny novelty, deny advertisement, deny conversion methods. In today’s conditions, user acquisition is the most complicated task for any project. That’s why it is recommended to always deliver your idea in a short and comprehensive manner, and keep it focused on what message you want to deliver and who you are delivering it to. Make user acquisition the focus of all your communication, first even to the first profits.
Bad: you offer your potential customers 4 different products, each solving its own problem. Users can decide which product they are interested in, and will, in all cases, decided that none is.
Good: you have selected one product, showcased it briefly, comprehensively explained what it is the best product on the market and allowed user to follow up with an action: launch notification subscription, registration, free trial, preorder, etc.
04. Using focus groups
If Apple was using focus groups to discuss a phone without buttons and stylus, we would have never seen an iPhone. Sony would never release a Walkman, and Polaroid instant camera would never hit the market. It takes courage to deliver an innovation to the market, a courage focus groups do not possess. Average is what you get with focus groups, consisting of people that think with yesterday’s categories.
However, it is important to remember that courage does not mean insane. If absolutely no-one understands what your product is about, it is a sign you might be doing something wrong, so take note of other people opinions, just not too much.
Bad: get friends & family to form a focus group and include all the recommendations in your products.
Good: close your eyes and envision the product in detail, make a prototype and imagine a client using it. Show the prototype to friends and receive criticism, but only change things you agree with.
05. Being conservative
Do you really want another landing page with ‘How it works’, ‘Advantages of using our product’, fake testimonials slider and a feedback form in the footer?
The most important task for a startup is to attract users. It can only be achieved by creating an emotional bond, amusing the audience by your solutions and convenience. Do not relay on standard practices, think different. Things Google or Nike do are not what you need — they already have a client base. Be simpler, easier, more creative and accessible.
Bad: take standard template and input your project details.
Good: wrap your solution into a short tale of how and why it works better than anything. Only the core information without too much detail, packed in the simplest of forms.
Lego photos in the article belong to amazing authors from Unsplash.com.
