Should you focus on Design or Usability?

A question almost all marketers are faced with at one time or another — form or function? Which should take precedence? How do we decide?

We debate this when we create our landing pages, our mobile apps, our forms, our email templates, our emails themselves, our ads. We sit in marketing meetings and make our case that the beauty of the thing is more important than ease of use, and vice versa.

We go back and forth because we think the two are mutually exclusive. In this video, Flint McGlaughlin demonstrates the error in this approach and gives us a new way to look at the design versus usability question.

If you put the customer first, then form and function can be aligned properly.

— Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute

Once the debate begins, we can get so caught up in arguing our side that we forget that about serving the customer. We actually put our preferences, our ideas and our designs above the customer’s needs — the exact opposite of what we intended to do as marketers. 

But, when you approach your marketing with a customer-first perspective, looking at your collateral through the eyes of the customer, the design and functionality that will best serve them will come naturally. Using this approach, you will see a transformation in your marketing and the increase in conversions it creates will reflect that.

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