In the very best tradition of the finest entrepreneurs “The Heretic” started out as an experiment. It went through customer validation, some iterations and due to you, my dear fellow heretics, it became something I greatly enjoy and, dare I say, makes me proud.
Today I am incredibly excited to announce a new feature — The Heretic welcomes three unbelievably awesome Dissenters who will bring you regular columns about their area of deep expertise, all in the heretic style you came to expect and love.
Jane Finette will take the bullshit out of marketing; Crystal Beasley will yell at your poor UX/UI and design and Lloyd Hilaiel will drill technology into your body.
Without much further ado — here’s the first column from our UX Dissenter Crystal:
There’s a study that shows that people report that wine tastes better out of fancy crystal wine glass. Poor winemakers toil away in the mud, consulting the phases of the moon, to bottle a more excellent vintage than the last. Who knew all they need do is order up a box of Riedel stems.
Your product is not so different from that bottle of wine. A good visual design will enhance the experience of using your product. The visual design will indicate what sort of this this is, who the product is for, how much it costs, etc. Note that it indicates this whether or not you want it to. Serving Châteauneuf du Pape in a paper cup may not be an intentional choice, it will affect the experience of drinking it nonetheless.
This doesn’t mean your visual design should be fancy or slick or nice. What’s right for wine isn’t right for everything. Beer doesn’t taste better out of a wine glass. You drink Miller straight out of the longneck. Stella Artois has made a whole advertising campaign of its signature glass. Churchkey is reviving a line of working man’s beer in 1940’s cans. Miller is for working men, Stella is for beer snobs, Churchkey is for hipsters who wish they were working men. It’s all about knowing who audience is. Your visual design should say to them “this is for me.”