Designers can add significant value to companies and the venture capital community is beginning to reward companies that make the most of them. Those were a couple of the findings of new report on design in technology launched at South by Southwest this week by John Maeda, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers. It sought to highlight a shift that is happening across technology companies. But it also has a lot of relevance for digital health businesses seeking to balance health content with a product customers will use daily to manage their health.
To emphasize his point, Maeda noted that 27 startups founded by designers and 10 creative agencies were acquired by technology companies in the past four years.
In a survey of 110 “top designers in the tech industry” about one-third of designers, about half had formal design training and one-third had formal engineering training. That experience matches up with Maeda, who graduated from MIT and later got a PhD in design. Prior to joining KPCB, he led Rhode Island School of Design.
Maeda’s background is far from conventional for a partner at a Sand Hill Road firm where he advises portfolio companies on how to increase the impact of design in their products and company culture.
He emphasized that design was not about making products look nice, it was about making them relevant. He referenced a friend who is not going for the wow factor but the after wow factor when he designs products. The idea is that consumers not only appreciate the value and use of the product when they first buy it but months later when they can appreciate the impact it has in their daily life.
Still Maeda emphasized that it’s not about designers controlling the direction of a company but having a voice and participating early on rather than as an afterthought. Another critical component is that the CEO buys into it. “To achieve great design, you need great business thinking/doing — to effectively invest in design — and you need great engineering — to achieve unflagging performance.”
Healthcare has plenty of regulatory constraints that other sectors lack, which obviosuly creates more challenges. But in health IT, particularly tools that crunch large amounts of data to make it easier and faster to spot red flags, visualization tools that do an effective job of conveying that information are of particular interest.
