We’ve worked with a lot of early-stage companies over the years. Some of those engagements have gone swimmingly and some—well, we have taken the lesson and moved forward. Recently, the notorious Dave McClure, super angel, has become a terrific champion for the value of design to startups. I even had the extreme pleasure of speaking at Startonomics a couple of years ago on a related topic. (Video: See me looking squat next to Jeff Veen.)

We thought it would be helpful to share a few quick insights to those of you thinking, “I have some engineers and some cash. Now, I want some of that sweet design magic.”

Before you read further, I’ll have to ask you repeat aloud: “Design* is not magic. Design is not art. Design is a set of considered, goal-oriented decisions.”

Thanks.

That is now your mantra whenever you are dealing with this strange design substance or talking to the people in the fancy shoes and eyeglasses.

I present the following four options for dealing with design:

1. Ignore design for now and crank out some features.
2. Get your nerds to swot up on usability principles and muddle through, yo.
3. Hire or contract designers to work “in-house” (which can still be the case even if you are a virtual company).
4. Invest in working with an agency. (And it better feel like an investment. In general, clients value design in proportion to the commitment of time and resources they’ve made to it. More on this below.)

The first is a non-starter—unless you like burning money. You are making UX design decisions as soon as you specify anything you expect another human to interact with, as soon as you specify anything that has implications for how a human might interact with it. Of course, you are are also making system design decisions, but we assume you are comfortable with that sort of thing.

So don’t pretend like you aren’t making design decisions already. And don’t make them by omission. You cannot NOT design something. The floor of Silicon Valley is littered with the crumbling husks of great ideas—useful products and services that died in the shell before they hatched out of their impenetrable engineering-specified interfaces. (It’s why Sunnyvale roads have the same consistency as the floor of a Western bar.)

As for the fourth, a lot of entrepreneurs come in here expecting that that is always our answer—hire us, boys! It isn’t. Even if money is no object. We don’t take on work unless we can add value.

All consumer-facing Internet companies need good design. They won’t all benefit from working with us. We don’t want anyone to gnash their teeth or feel ripped-off and forever after think they “wasted” precious capital or time on design.

That leaves option two or three, which might very well be your best option right now. How to decide? Are you ready for the power of Mule?

To save you time and a phone call, we’ll begin with the negative.

Don’t Hire a Design Agency, If…

You aren’t ready to focus on what you want to offer and to whom.

If you can’t describe the value to someone outside your team, design cannot help manifest that value to your target users. We are great with strategy. We can help you tell your story, prioritize user types, and evaluate the potential inclusion and relationship of features. (And, please do talk to us about potential names). But we can’t just make all this up out of whole cloth. Clients have actually said to us, “Blue sky! You have complete freedom to design whatever you want. Don’t think about any constraints.” This doesn’t make our job easier. Design requires goals and constraints.

You need “some sketches” to help you visualize potential paths.

This is a great time for a prototype. Or, hire an illustrator to literally do some sketches. A designer will be all over you for use cases. You risk being frustrated when what is coming back doesn’t match the picture in your mind. It is our job to interrogate every potential solution against your goals, whether we propose it or you do. If what you really want is a particular type of widget, rather than a solution to a problem, just hire someone to draw that widget for you for your engineers to build.

Your investors told you to get some design, but you don’t buy into the value.

We try to impress upon new and potential clients the importance of their trust and participation throughout the process. Client interaction and feedback on an agreed-upon schedule is essential to the success of a design engagement. You also have to have belief in your heart that designers have expertise relevant to your work.

Your goals or strategy are volatile and subject to rapid change.

Design projects can move very quickly with good communication and clear goals. No goals, no design project. Changes in strategy, no design project. The only way to evaluate potential design solutions is against goals, so the goals must remain the same for the duration of the design work, long or short. Otherwise, you can never evaluate potential solutions and you will never be done.

This is a self-funded, personal passion project.

See above. Also it is very difficult to remove subjectivity and engage critically in design evaluations when the work is being funded out of one’s retirement savings. If it is a side-project, be realistic about your timeline and the amount of time you have to invest in it. Agencies enjoy timelines. Again, having a lot of money doesn’t matter.

If you have a personal, self-funded project, get some external advisors to help you clarify your goals and expectations and hire a full-time or contract designer to work alongside you in a close and personal manner—a pixel butler, if you will. External designers will just frustrate you unless you are truly ready for them to challenge your vision.

You have sufficient knowledge and capacity to hire and direct an in-house team.

The success of the personal finance app Mint.com is widely attributed in great measure to the quality of its branding and user interface design. From the choice of the product name right on down through typography and messaging, they made a lot of good decisions that came from a deep appreciation of the value of design. (While we worked with Mint.com on several projects, all application design was done in-house.)

You will have to determine with your board and your team whether you can pull this off.

Do Hire Us, If…

You are working on something the world actually needs, something interesting and useful/highly entertaining.

A good agency will bring focus and commitment to the user experience of your product or service. They will help ensure that you are creating something that appeals to a wider audience, to the people you need to reach to succeed. We won’t waste your time because we sure don’t want you wasting ours.

You value design expertise and are ready to listen to an outside perspective.

Hiring an agency allows you to delegate a large chunk of work and project management and focus on what you do best. You just have to provide goals, input, and feedback. Your team will act as the engineering and business subject matter experts while the designer works with you to meet your goals.

We’ve all heard, “Fail fast. Fail often.” A good external design team will challenge decisions and priorities to make sure that you are making something that doesn’t suck. We say that we strive to give our clients what they need, which isn’t necessarily the specific thing they ask for. And designers should expect the same critical candor from the feedback you provide. A lone internal UX resource will be less likely to challenge engineering priorities or business assumptions. This could potentially compromise the quality and effectiveness of the user experience.

You have clear, realistic high-priority goals for the design work.

Designers will help ensure that you are building and adding features that serve real business goals and user needs. Also, they will make sure that the value you provide is as apparent as possible. There are few things more frustrating than having users repeatedly request functionality that is already part of the product, because the interface design is getting in the way.

Getting the work done well and effectively requires that you work in partnership with your agency and participate as required. The fact that you have invested the time and money actually can help keep your team focused on those goals and reaching real milestones. At the end of the engagement, you will have made tangible progress and you will have a set of principles that will underpin the future growth and development of your product or service.

You agree to never, ever refer to design as “magic”, “art”, “creative”, “skin”, “colors and fonts and stuff”, “sex appeal”, “sparkle” or—of course—“tarting it up.”

Design is a way of thinking. Specific types of design thinking and production are necessary to a successful Internet business. The type of design you need will vary with the type of product or service you are creating. (For example, personal financial services require a comforting, polished brand design and detailed attention to messaging, while a social network might need a lightweight look appropriate to frequent use and dopamine-releasing interaction design.) Good designers will help you figure out what you need and prevent you from burning cash on something you don’t.

*To be clear—when we say design, we mean interchangeably user experience (UX) or interface design, a discipline in which we also include the fundamentals of online branding and marketing.

Tweet | Written by Erika Hall on April 11, 2011 |