Everyone can build software now. AI kinda made sure of that.

You can spin up a competitor to almost anything in a weekend.
And the results look decent, for sure.

But that's the problem. Decent.

You can tell it was built with AI, and your site ends up looking like everyone else's.

So I want to walk you through what actually changes when you invest in design.

Brand

This one is simple. Without good brand design you get lost. Everyone uses the same design systems, same templates, same brand guides. It's immediately clear the whole thing was built with AI.

For me, brand is the first filter. People decide in seconds if they take you seriously or not. And if your brand looks like a template, they already made up their mind.

Good brand design makes you stand out. That's it. You attract higher-quality customers because it looks like someone actually cared.

Website

I see this a lot. You have a good-looking site, which is fine.

But people land on it and they have no idea what they're getting, why it's for them, everything kinda blurs together.
They don't even read it.

I see this especially with website visuals and screenshots. They're supposed to support the text but usually they either steal all the attention or they do nothing at all.

Now what happens with good design? Everyone who visits your site immediately knows it's for them. And if they're not a good fit for the software, they see that too. Which is actually great for conversion and saves you a lot of time talking to the wrong people.

Onboarding

This is a big one. People get thrown into potentially complicated software because AI can suddenly spin up 20 different features in a weekend. So there is a lot of stuff going on. Users don't know where to start, they don't know what they're in for. Very likely they just turn away.

With good onboarding design you walk them through step one, step two, step three. The end goal is simple. Show value quickly. That's about it.

Daily usage

Same story here. Simple tasks that probably used to take a minute now take 10 because the software isn't really structured well. You kinda have to click through, I don't know how many menus, to get one simple thing done.

Good design makes it as simple as:

• Import
• Edit
• Publish
• Done

And the thing is, design isn't just how software looks. It's how things work (sounds so AI haha).

Ideally you have complicated stuff that you don't even show. The software handles it already, and then you just have the minimum amount of input in the frontend.

Software development

Without a proper design system it's just an annoying back and forth.

• How does this button look?
• Did we use this component already?
• Is this component actually valuable?
• What happens when you hover it?

I have worked within teams without a design system. It just takes ages, infinite discussions, nobody agrees on anything.

With a proper design system in place, everything is defined. Every minute the designer spends gives the developers back five minutes. For sure.

Your chance of success

To me, your chances without design nowadays are close to zero. You don't stand out, you're a lot slower, and building great features is just harder.

With design you stand out, you ship quickly, and you have consistent software that actually delivers value.

Make sure design is your moat.

And if you're not a designer, reach out to me.