January 23, 20252 minutes to read

Design Quality Is A Business Function

The hard truth about design is business constraints define the quality you can achieve.

Let's talk about design quality and the value of design.

I believe that design quality is a feature you can offer customers. The reality is that some customers will pay for higher-quality design, while others won't. The quality you can achieve is almost always a product of who you're selling to and what you can charge (Total Addressable Market x margin).

A project I'm working on just provided a great example. For context, the product is similar to a smart thermostat. That market has three tiers of design quality (screen resolution, animations, gestures, shading, typography, build quality, etc.). Tier one is Nest and Ecobee Premium; tier two has Sensi, Honeywell T9 and Ecobee Lite; and tier three is the knockoffs, nonames, and nonsense. The product cost in each tier correlates with the design quality, i.e. tier one is 3x more expensive than tier three.

Our initial design aimed for the first tier. However, the chipset controlling this product can't render the animations, shading, or resolution we desire. We could upgrade to more expensive hardware, but that raises the product price into a different market of customers. The barrier between the first and second tiers is the cost consumers will pay, not the design team's ability. The business levers of market size and unit costs control the design quality.

I'm not mad tho. Neither tier is better or worse. They're just different businesses. My job as a designer is to solve the business problem, not gratify my desire for custom easing equations in transition animations. Some might argue that a good designer can balance production costs and quality—I’ve heard worse.

The quality tradeoffs in SAAS and consumer apps can seem more arcane than my example because there are more design requirements with indirect costs (e.g. design systems, usability, brand alignment), but the underlying constraints are the same. Design costs that can't be easily passed to customers will always take longer to achieve.

So, next time you’re frustrated about pushing design quality forward, step back and consider the business landscape. Understand your market before pointing fingers at those who “don’t get design.” We’re all in this together—designers and businesses—working within the same economic system. Let’s collaborate to create solutions that work for both our craft and our customers.

Thoughts? I’d love to hear how you navigate design challenges in business!