There seems to be a link between business success and good design.

A lot of people think design is just about pretty graphics, but it's actually about usability, effectiveness, and consumer satisfaction - and getting a vital competitive edge.

And so many businesses ignore design, or get it badly wrong - and then fail.

For examples of good design think of Google and their amazingly simple homepage - one of the factors that allowed them to beat Yahoo who had an amazingly complex and cluttered one. Look at the way the Dyson vacuum cleaners work. Think of anything that Apple does - not just the pretty packages and outer containers, but the user interfaces. You don't need a manual, it's intuitive.

For bad design? Well I've had an experience lately that has set me thinking about this subject....

I recently drove a car fuelled by LPG for the first time. This could be a breakthrough product, at the perfect time:

  • LPG fuel is more environmentally friendly - a hot topic at the moment
  • LPG fuel is much cheaper - and cars that run on unleaded petrol can be converted cheaply and easily.

So - it's an industry that can offer to save customers money while saving the environment. You'd think we'd all be rushing out to change to it today wouldn't you? Not me. Not after trying it.

Because it's a different type of fuel it needs different pumps, different fuel tanks, and different connectors between the two - so they had an opportunity to get some great design brains on the project and completely change the way we refuel cars, making it much easier.

But they have not just missed this opportunity - they have gone the other way, making it even more difficult and unpleasant than ever before. For those of you who haven't tried it yet, here's the story...

  1. Hardly any petrol stations have LPG (even on the motorway!!)so when you're getting low you're searching desperately around for one that does.
  2. When you do find one you park by the pump as usual. You then have to physically attach a much bigger hose than usual to your LPG fuel inlet. Different petrol stations have different styles of attachment, so you have to figure out different combinations of pushing, twisting and pulling the levers.
  3. You then press the button to start fuelling. This is a good touch.
  4. When the tank is full you have to remove the hose. This is the very worst bit. You're bending over the connector to wrestle with the levers, twisting and pulling it off - and it releases a small explosion of pressurised gas into your face. It's alarming and it stinks. This is what will put most people off. I can't beleive this is allowed through health and safety, leaving aside the amazement that anyone would think this was an acceptible design feature for consumer use.
  5. Finally, you're refuelled, you pay, and you head on your way to a meeting feeling that you now stink of the stale-egg gas smell. Nice.

The result is a huge missed opportunity. With some good product designers on the case they could have created a runaway success - an amazingly simple, clean, pleasant way of refuelling - but as it is the whole system is a flop.

The moral of the story for entrepreneurs is to always think about design. See your product or service through the eyes of your target customer. How can you make it simpler to use? How can you make it more pleasant to use? How can you remove any 'friction' in the customer experience - those little niggles that will put people off?

The best entrepreneurs make things better by design.