Episode 21 – The Importance of Interface Design

We all know that slick interface designs are pretty to look at. Personally, I ogle over them like the centerfold in a mens magazine. Is that weird? The more sleek and intuitive the design, the more I am drawn to it. Obviously, one of the results of good interface design is usability. Give me an app that looks pretty and works the way I expect it to and I am sold. Where do I pay?

I’m sure none of you will argue with the general statements above. Well, maybe the one about the mens magazines, but you know what I mean. So we all enjoy applications that work intuitively and and look pretty, but how important is good interface design to the overall succes of an application?

I say very.

I don’t just think that good interface design is important just from a usability point of view. I think it is important from a marketing and business point of view as well. It seems to me that your application ( assuming you make multiple ones ) should be an extension of your brand. I should be able to look at an apps interface and know who designed it. Obviously the general public (i.e. non designers/developers) may not be able to do this, but that doesn’t mean its not important. If you want a good example of companies that do just this, check out:

• Meta Labs
• Tapbots

One thing that I think that many app developers underestimate is the value of a good looking design. Just because the application is usable, doesn’t mean that it looks good. I have played with ( and lost interest in ) plenty of apps that worked well usability wise, but just were not pretty. Maybe I’m a design snob, but an app is so much more fun to use when it looks pretty. I am not the only one who feels this way, which is why application developers need to pay more attention to the design process. I can’t tell you how many times I have bought an iPhone app just because it looked pretty. I have at least a dozen apps that I almost never use, but bought because they look pretty.

What do you guys think about this?