> Free word of mouth advertising and free blog articles written about the beauty of the
> pixels contribute to the bottom line much more than the cost of doing a little
> pixel fitting.
Really?
Give me the data to back up your bottom line claim. Because in my (5 and counting) start-ups I've seen little to no impact on the bottom line from design blog posts.
Sorry, I didn't mean design blogs. I am talking about normal blogs and tech blogs.
I believe products that are designed well and polished get more attention from blogs and receive more word of mouth recommendations. I believe one of reasons iOS and the iPhone helped propel Apple into becoming the largest company in the world was Apple's attention to design details. However, I have no way to test or prove this theory. So please disagree if you like.
1 - the link between blogs of all sorts and the bottom-line is tenuous at best. If you're an ad revenue business, you can make the argument that all traffic has an impact on the bottom line, but suffice it to say that none of the advertising supported start-ups I have been involved in have seen sustained valuable traffic referred in from a blog.
2 - Normal blogs and tech blogs don't write articles that go into detail on the minutae of the design elements in a product's UI. That's limited to design blogs.
3 - Personally, I'm getting kind of tired of the default defense of most designers to this sort of criticism ("because Apple"). Saying that Apple is where it is because of Design not only ignores the market, product and business realities that have lead to Apple's (recent) success - it also ignores the many ways in which Apple's design is sub-standard or even bad (resulting in people copying bad design patterns "because Apple did it").
Design absolutely matters when a consumer is interfacing with your application, and pixel-pushing is actually quite important. It can be used as a talking point - the SeatGeek application is extremely well-designed for it's vertical, and is meant to be pleasing to use (thereby hopefully driving more eyeballs/higher conversion).
Internally, I think it's also a way to have the designers/developers proud of something they helped accomplish. No, I didn't perform any of the design on the SeatGeek app, but you'll bet your ass I'm not complaining about the three hours I spent uploading about 100 - outsourced and therefore not named well enough for me to automate it - logos to S3 for use in the app. It's a source of pride, and it's what staves off the burnout.
Reference: I work on Operations at SeatGeek, and after slicing up a PSD to very exacting specifications two years ago, I know exactly what kind of a difference design can make re: tech blogs/traffic.
Really? Give me the data to back up your bottom line claim. Because in my (5 and counting) start-ups I've seen little to no impact on the bottom line from design blog posts.