One thread caught my eye the other day, and certainly deserves a little attention here on InsideRIA, as I am sure that many RIA developers have faced the question posed many times.

Why do crappy interfaces sell?

The thread was started by an individual that presented himself as a freelancer working on an interface for a client. His client had an appreciation for his work, but did not feel it necessary to focus on experience design, as the product in question was selling just fine with a "crappy" interface.

I'm betting that regardless of whether you work as a freelance contractor, an employee of a large enterprise, a highly valued member of a small start-up, or a designer/developer working for an interactive design studio, at some point you have come across a project/client like the one he describes. I'm sure that you felt the frustration of knowing you could build something wonderful on behalf of the end user, but your client just didn't think that it was a priority to do so.

Maybe you have been on the other side of things. You may have purchased a product, or have been forced to use a product at work that has an interface that you just cannot bear. Version after version of the product, the same bad experience persists and you keep having to use it.

In order to answer the question "Why do crappy interfaces sell" we must first remove the ambiguity of the term "crappy". I cannot measure the "crappiness" of an interface, because crappy in this context is a relative reference to my personal expectation of experience using digital interfaces. We have to turn this from a relative reference to an absolute reference so that we are making a claim that is provable or falsifiable.

Try this on for size:

"Why do interfaces that work sell?" or the opposite: "Why do interfaces that do not work sell?"

The truth is, that interfaces that do not work do not sell at all, as working correctly is usually a requirement for most projects to be released. Interfaces that work, allow the user to use a product or service, and anything more than just working is a bonus.

I must be starting to sound like Jakob Neilson right now. I am suggesting that the level of effectiveness of a user interface starts at "working" and anything more than that is extra. Note though, that this article is about understanding the supply and demand of experience, not about how valuable your creativity and skills may or may not be.

So if we are talking about supply and demand we have to define the two sides of the equation. The demand side is outside-in, it is the emergence of an "Experience Oriented Market" within a vertical. The supply side is inside-out, and it is called Design Maturity.

Experience design becomes the most important line item when an experience oriented market emerges from within a vertical. This often occurs because the market - whether product or service - is entering a stage of commoditization. This means strong competition emerges, and at least one party is unwilling to compete on price. One of the only ways out of competing on price is competing on experience.

The famous example of this is coffee. We pay 4 dollars sometimes for a nice cup of coffee these days. We aren't really paying that much for the coffee, because it is a commodity. We are actually paying for the experience wrapped around it, by Starbucks, The Second Cup, or the really beautiful cappuccino bar down the street. The demand has shifted from coffee, to the experience of drinking it luxuriously.

In software we see this same trend. Experience oriented markets eventually arise in operating system software, email software, social networks, and on and on, and it happens when there is competition on commodity.

When there is no competition, and no commodity, there is not a lot of importance placed on experience design. The differentiator in this case would be the fact that the raw technology, or content is enough to attract users to use the product, and the fear of losing those users to a better experience is low.

Some might say, "well what about my router? The UI for that is pretty crappy, and there is tonnes of competition in that market". That is a true statement, but you will likely see that the market chose to compete on price rather than on experience when they hit the commoditization stage. Competing on experience can significantly raise prices, and there is only so much experiential benefit that can be applied to configuring a router before the price starts to leave the threshold of tolerance of your customers.

So from the demand side, "crappy" interfaces sell because the end users are satisfied with their product's functionality due to the fact that they have very limited other options, or because the interfaces in question are being designed for products or services that differentiate themselves on price.

The supply side of the experience supply and demand equation is best defined in a model called Design Maturity. This model presents a map of an organization's perception of the importance of design/experience.

Design Maturity - BplusD
Design Maturity - Thinking & Making

The Design Maturity continuum is a valuable tool to use to evaluate yourself, your company, your competitors, your partners, as well as your suppliers. Using it, you can easily determine how an entity will deal with the emergence of an experience oriented market within their vertical, and it will also help you identify which entities could cause these types of markets to emerge.

Organizations at the no conscious design level are often engineering companies doing R&D work, or paving the road for a product to be developed. Getting it "working" is priority one, and experience will be something dealt with later. If a company is not in the business of R&D, and actually in a market, they are incredibly susceptible to being crushed by the emergence of an experience oriented market. These types of companies often steer away from experience oriented markets, and focus on being at the "cutting-edge" of technology instead.

At the other end of the scale, Framing represents a view of design that starts with solving current problems by meeting real demand with supply. It is a visionary mindset that sets out to cause creative destruction and redefine the value equation in a market.

Apple is the ultimate example of a company and culture built on a framing mentality. These types of companies create experience oriented markets, and are often extremely difficult to oust once they get their foot into the door.

Once you can clearly see the two sides of the equation, it becomes easy to understand why "crappy" interfaces sell. It is simply because the market conditions have not yet arisen to justify the costs of putting a great experience in place.

It is unfortunate that this happens, but if there is truly a market for experience within a vertical, it is inevitable that some entity will eventually capitalize on it and shift the value equation.