It seems product designers have grown afraid of Beauty. We hide behind UX research, ’real business work’, ’form follows function,’ and other markers of good products.

This is understandable. Beauty can’t be measured. You can’t easily sell it to stakeholders. You can’t be objective about Beauty. It’s hard to create, and in today’s world, it often costs almost nothing. Every CEO, CPO, and product manager will ask how it makes money. How much? What’s the ROI? Who knows.

Secondly, we live in a world where designers must serve business needs. Over time, we start evaluating each other by how much revenue we’ve generated. You’re told not to be like those ’Dribbblers’ creating ’useless’ pictures. But after a long day, we find ourselves looking at those very pictures and concepts, searching for inspiration. And somewhere inside, we ask, ’Why not?’ or ’What if?’

It’s like an internal trauma. We can’t quantify Beauty, so we retreat into the safety of our functional, efficient swamp. We hold ourselves back, we censor our creativity. We stifle everyone entering the profession, pushing them to follow the same current of conformity. Everything measured in dollars and green metrics feels straightforward — explainable, mathematical, statistical.

Designers like to think that it’s not about how it looks. It’s about how it works, or how it communicates, or how it changes the world. All true, except it’s also about how it looks. The artifacts we make are the Trojan horses that deliver our ideas to an unsuspecting public. Making them look beautiful — or engaging, or funny, or provocative — is anything but a superficial exercise. Michael Bierut. Now You See It and Other Essays on Design

Yet people don’t engage with metrics or calculations; they experience the product. People want to feel cared for, they want to play and experience positive emotions again and again. And when they only see functionality, they feel bored.

When creating products, especially large ones aimed at a broad audience evaluate your projects, screens, and elements. Ask yourself: are they beautiful or ugly from an aesthetic perspective? Don’t forget the emotions. Think of screens as buildings on the streets where people constantly walk. You wouldn’t want to live in a dull building, despite all its functionality. You’d like to see quality architecture every day and cultivate your taste. This is how we push our future beyond mere functionality, to create products that are not just effective but aesthetically pleasing.

His priority seemed always to be the creation of objects that were beautiful rather than simply functional. He was constantly questioning how things should be. “He hated ugly, black and tacky electronics,” recalled Grinyer. “He hated computers having names like ZX75 and numbers of megabytes. He hated technology as it was in the 1990s.” Leander Kahney. Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products

I don’t claim to be a super expert or a designer who can create exceptionally beautiful things. But I try because I want to see a world that’s beautiful, not just efficient. Of course, I’m not dismissing business needs, user needs, or functionality. I see them as a foundation or a trampoline, not the final solution.

We need a balance — it’s time to reclaim space for Beauty.

Additional links

“Beauty”. Stefan Sagmeister, Jessica Walsh

“Now You See It and Other Essays on Design”. Michael Bierut

“Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products”. Leander Kahney

“The obsession over craft” post from David Hoang