Design is the way information flows. The “design of something” is an all encompassing expression that refers to color, layout, images, fonts, patterns, content, editing, and even your business model and infrastructure. For example, if you are running a punk rock cafe and your business model entails the delivery of that niche groove to your local customers, then your shop design, business cards, customer service, and menu selections should all work together to deliver that image through the colours, jive, design elements, music and flavour of customer service your patrons experience when they enter your cafe. It should pop with punk rock cafe attitude! Design is about the total image. It is very contextual and is one of the most important elements of your business.
Whether you are looking for good technical documentation, menu designs or marketing material, a design that is intuitive and easy to follow makes a world of difference to your customers.
Think about Google. “Simplicity” and “ease of use” comes to mind. Compare Google with Yahoo and you can see the difference. The front page of Yahoo is loaded with content. While each have their own strengths, Google having more, they are quite different in their approaches. Which do you think has the more useable design? Google does. Simplicity is simply sexy and people LIKE sexy!
A few key components of good design are:
Customer based
Easy to use and intuitive interface
Accessibility
Up-to-date
Consistent
Less clicks
Minimal
Non-redundant
