Team Viewpoint: What is Good Design?

What is good design?

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As a UX Design agency you're probably wondering why we are asking this question. But for the second instalment in our 'Team Viewpoint' series we wanted to find out how our team would describe the meaning of good design, so we spoke to members not only from within the design team but also some of the wider departments. The beauty of this questions is that we don't believe there is a wrong answer, but how people describe their thoughts on good design is interesting and insightful.

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So let's see who said what!

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Helen said...

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To me, truly great design goes beyond just creating a user-friendly solution. It should tackle real-world problems and leave a positive mark. LifeStraw, for example, is a portable water filter that's a perfect illustration of this. This ingenious design offers a simple solution for people struggling to access clean water, and it also promotes environmental responsibility by reducing reliance on single-use plastics. That's the kind of design that truly inspires me.

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Cherokee said...

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To me, good design is invisible. It’s not about flashy aesthetics or personal preferences, but creating a seamless experience where users effortlessly achieve their goals. Good design is the result of deep understanding, starting with thorough research into user behaviours, motivations, and pain points. Every design choice is backed by data and has a purpose, ensuring we’re solving real problems and optimising for success. Design is never truly finished, but an evolving process of testing, measuring, and refining to adapt to changing user needs and business goals. Ultimately, good design creates a positive emotional response in users – a feeling of satisfaction, trust, and loyalty. When users don’t even notice the design, that’s when we know we’ve done our job right.

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Becky said...

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Good design is design you don’t perceive. People always think of design as visuals but the core of design is actually thinking about how and why something is used and building an experience around that. If something feels intuitive and is easy to understand without you having to spend extra effort, then it has been designed well.

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Aimee said...

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In the past I’d have simply judged design on the way something looked. After working at Elixel for nearly 7 years I now realise that good design goes much deeper. How I interact with something and the value it brings to me will tell me whether the design is good or bad. Now I believe good design is a blend of creating a product that serves a purpose, has good visuals as well as a top notch user experience.

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Paul said...

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Good design is creating an experience that is convenient, that serves us well and draws the right amount of attention to itself. Bad design is more obvious, it creates a negative experience that distracts you away from what you want to achieve.

Steve Jobs famously said “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works”.

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Gavin said...

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For me good design is invisible. What I mean by this is that good design is enabling your average user to interact with your platform without even thinking about the experience. Its intuitive, seamless and friction free.