Strong Design Culture = Sales

A strong design culture creates value that translates to product sales

Design culture is more than a good design team. A strong design culture should be shared across the entire R&D organization - engineering, product and design. When done effectively, strong design cultures create successful products.

I have seen over and over again that strong design cultures share common traits.

Trait 1 - Shared Understanding

Teams that have a design culture cultivate a shared understanding of the the user, the problems that need to be solved for that user, and what their overall product experience is like.

• The User - It all starts with your users. Organizations must develop a deep understanding of the user, what makes them successful, and the jobs that need to be done for that user to be successful.

• The Problem - Once you understand the user and what makes them successful, identify the problems - what keeps that user from being successful. It's important to know that Engineers, Product Managers, and Product Designers all bring unique perspectives to solve problems. By exploring problems from their unique perspectives, teams create more innovative solutions to address those problems.

• The Holistic Product Experience - Teams with a design culture develop a holistic understanding of the user's experience that goes beyond the user interface. This can include details like: how the documentation layers into their learning, how brand can reinforces the value to the user, and how integrating with other applications will benefit the user beyond the surface-level product interface. Laying out the user experience based on their intentions help to identify broken paths that can be resolved.
  

Trait 2 - Experimentation

Problems can often have many solutions. A strong design culture views solutions as experiments. And experiments need to be active to get results. Although usability research can frequently pinpoint issues, extensive user research take a long time to uncover insights, and provide diminishing returns. Teams that adopt the mindset of "let's try it out" get solutions to end users more quickly. But perhaps more importantly, treating a solution as an experiment enables a team to recognize and accept failure sooner, allowing them to swiftly pivot and iterate to the next version.

Trait 3 - Healthy Conflict

While some view product teams (engineering, product management, and design) as "3 in a box," I envision these teams as triangles, with each function occupying a point of the triangle. In an organization with a robust design culture, each function must provide tension against the other two functions to maintain the triangle's shape. For instance, the ideal interface might conflict with the time required to develop it, and require teams to identify which is more important - the exact interface, or the time to get it out the door. By creating an environment that allows for healthy tension among the functions, teams can have real discussions, and create solutions that achieve the most within a reasonable timeframe.

Trait 4 - Teams deliver real value

In a strong design culture, everyone is encouraged to contribute to success, and individuals aren't limited by their job titles or complex processes when tackling a problem. I've seen many examples where people go beyond their "boundaries" to make things happen, such as engineers taking part in design decisions or designers improving documentation. When people have the freedom to contribute creatively, they feel empowered. This empowerment delivers genuine value to your end users and aligns with the corporate strategy.

You'll notice that I didn't mention aesthetics in this list of benefits. Although aesthetics might improve as a result of a strong design culture, the true goal is providing real value. A robust design culture significantly contributes to providing that real value. And real value means real sales.