Is Bad Design a Sign of Bad A Company Culture?

Poor design execution & UX might be a major red flag

There you sit, meeting a potential new client or interviewing for a prestigious role. The company has nothing but glaringly easy design fixes, nowhere to go but up, and a product bursting with potential… but 2 months later you’re cursing the day you ever came through the door.

How did this happen? You fell into a trap. It’s difficult to identify a bad company culture on the surface, but a bad design system can be a clue. As designers we’re always looking to fix bad design decisions, solve product problems, and create great experiences. We can blindly rush in to triage these situations before fully assessing the higher-level issues.

How are Design and Culture Correlative?

Name a great brand with bad company culture. They are few and far between (moral high ground issues aside — i.e. Nike and Apple international sweatshops). Design is the brand’s living visual representation. The face of it’s UX and product. The employees in the company shape it’s brand culture and systems through their everyday contributions.

You can tell when this is faked as well. Brand gaps are transparent from the support channels, the content quality, and certainly in the design. Style without substance is easily discovered as hollow.

So, How Does Bad Design Happen?

A few usual suspects are design by committee, decision makers’ poor taste, endless layers of approvals, handing off work to be pitched by others, disengaged talent, technical limitations, etc. The list of causes can go on and on. Bad design happens when gaps in communication appear, no clarity, mission, or goals. Bad design happens when bad (or lack of) process becomes commonplace.

Often it’s not a lack of designers or design talent, it’s that the designers (not to mention the rest of the employees) are frustrated to a point of complacency. You can buy people’s time, but you can’t buy their enthusiasm.

How is this a Product of Bad Culture?

Well, how does bad culture happen? Bad leadership combined with bad practices. If your leadership team is more focused on internal politics, micromanagement, and ‘low hanging fruit’ quick fixes they’re not cultivating an environment of sustained success. Constant fire drills rarely produce award-winning work.

So, if bad leadership is the cause of bad culture, how is this reflected in the design? Well, bad leaders are often micro-managers who hire smart and capable people only to dictate everything they do. Creative Killer.

Bad systems often burn out even the most prepared and motivated creative. If a team isn’t set up properly for success, mediocrity and failure are the only options left. Not a morale booster.

Identifying Bad Culture Design Practices :

Here are a few flags to help you investigate/question culture issues:

Fluctuations in quality — Great illustration, but garbage interfaces and UX flows or vice versa. This is also an indicator of a lack of QA. A sign that management is ignoring product, doesn’t really care, or is too lazy to address quality issues. If they push something you’d be embarrassed to find out why.

Everything is stock (especially cheap stock) — This is always a sign that leadership doesn’t see the value in design, or care enough to spend any budget on it. If they can’t drop a few bucks here and there will they take on any of your big ideas?

Outdated — If the site is built for late 90s screen resolutions (800x600), still running flash plugins, and literally no responsive considerations this is definitely a red flag. See any government contractor website. They’re making money (for now) and they don’t want the boat rocked, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle the entire engagement.

Network— Use LinkedIn or Glassdoor to reach out to former/current design team members. Find out what’s happening from their perspective and contrast with what HR is funneling to you. It’s always good practice to conduct due diligence on these situations before jumping in. Get the skinny ahead of time will save you months or years in the long run.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect — Sometimes the best people don’t get promoted to management as much as who has been there the longest. Even the best designers sometimes don’t translate into effective managers or Creative Directors. In government, this effect is known as “failing up.” Many managers fake it. Ask lots of competency questions.

These are just a few samples. Got any to add? Comment below.

Can you Change Culture Through Design?

To not be completely doom and gloom, there are ways to shape culture for the better:

Say No — Pushing back shows backbone, it demonstrates that you care and validates your future feedback. Drawing a line in the sand will gain respect with your peers, clients, and management.

Plan — Bad processes are the victims of a lack of planning. Getting good planning, design systems, and processes in place helps in even ‘fire drill’ workflows.

Emulate Successful Practices — Know somewhere that does it right? Copy them! A good foundation trumps a bad one any day no matter where it comes from.

Be Positive — It’s easy to jump on the complain train. Being the positive change in a situation is much harder, but as they say — you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Be an Evangelist — Host sessions sharing industry successes using design as a factor. Pitching your team seems odd, but other positions don’t understand how we operate and what we can do. Communication is key and this is a great way to find advocates.

Keep Your Eyes Open and Keep YOUR Best Interest in Mind

Paying the bills as a creative can be more top of mind than other needs, but setting yourself up for success should be just as important of a concern. What work you produce is an investment in the future of any design career. Don’t get too attached to a toxic client or stuck in a bad spot for a decade than have nothing to show for it.