Manning Fisher, CEO & Founder
GLASS PANTHER
Published on July 14, 2021 - About 4 min to read
Though your company may have pushed a digital product through to completion under an aggressive timeline, its long-term viability is at risk if you haven’t properly strategized. It’s possible to bring something to market quickly, but accrue deficits that will have to be dealt with later on. These technical and design debts can catalyze your company’s burn rate, stoking the flames of lost capital.
At Glass Panther, we’ve worked with nascent startups as well large portfolio VCs in formulating designs that are more than transient solutions. Our results show that our forward-thinking creative and technical methodologies, provide the right conditions to foster growth and support scalability.
Let’s examine how technical and design debt can affect a digital product’s long-term usability, their impact on brand perception, as well the potential costs in both capital and time.
At Glass Panther we understand the pressures startups and early stages tech companies face in having to rush a product to market. But shortsightedness can impact its future viability and adoption. Let’s examine how technical debt may lie dormant only for its eventual faults to come to light, affecting both users and your company’s bottom line.
Technical debt is the accrued impact of oversights, lack of strategic thinking, and quick fixes that add up to time, lost capital, and labor that companies will have to spend later. Developers may cut and paste code, make slight modifications to existing features, or otherwise build functionality without any forethought. These shortcuts may get a product to launch, but cause eventual problems that will have to be dealt with.
There are issues of scalability that are the direct result of technical debt. A minimal viable product may put into place enough code and branding to get a product to market, but its usefulness may prove short-lived as a company grows.
Technical debt will absolutely generate the need for future expenditures. The human capital, tooling, and time to make ongoing changes to the front and back end frameworks can reach the millions per year for large companies. What may be a smaller investment at the outset can turn into a costly drain on capital if not dealt with in a timely manner.
Glass Panther puts into place the necessary technical frameworks at the very beginning so that your company can circumvent technical debt.
Just as a quick rush to put together code and a backend into place can have disastrous implications, so can a hurried visual design. Making up for deficits in UI/UX may mean completely overhauling the user experience, retooling interactivity, and cleaning up the inconsistencies resulting from not instituting a formalized design system.
Design debt, like technical debt, comes from focusing too much on the finish line and forgetting that beyond the point of product launch there’s still so much further to go. Design debt also represents a future depletion of time, resources, and capital. Though it’s tempting to go with “good enough” to meet demanding deadlines, lean startup methodology doesn’t mean neglecting design. In fact, it requires a granular level to the details.
Pay attention to consistency in UI. A call to action button shouldn’t drastically change from one screen to the next. Navigation and UI patterns should be easy to pick up on and for visitors to remember. Give people everything they need for a cohesive and efficient experience.
Poorly researched and crafted UX can also cause design debt. A design should be crafted to optimize how visitors experience and engage with it. It needs to be user-focused and give them a good impression of your brand. When your user experience doesn’t have a purpose, it results in a suboptimal end product.
Glass Panther builds forward-thinking designs that bring together business strategy and visual artistry. We empower companies with work that not only meets business objectives but facilitates a top-tier user experience. There are never any deficits in the digital products we create.
A company can have an innovative product and gained traction, but having only a placeholder design up and running can diminish these accomplishments.
Invest in the design and functionality so that visitors will have the type of experience that will turn them into paying customers. The front end is where they first encounter a brand and it offers an opportunity to further engage. Put in the effort to build a design that captures the essence of your company and the value it offers. Product development is important, but so is building trust. First-time users want to feel like they’ve arrived at the right place. Show them the proof that they have.
Glass Panther understands how design thinking and branding are connected. We create digital projects that not only provide optimal usability but communicate what makes your brand special.
If you’re not investing in design and the technology stack behind a digital product, these deficits will come back to undercut your brand. Put in the work and bring to market something that not only meets your company’s needs, but those of your customers. Shortsightedness and underdeveloped strategies only benefit your competition. Mapping out a path to success means preparing for the future, and predicting how both your product may evolve and users needs may change.
At Glass Panther, we don’t take shortcuts or push out underdeveloped products. We implement long-term thinking to come up with bulletproof designs that will foster your company’s growth every step of the way.
If you appreciate the value of design, we look forward to doing business with you.
Contact us for world-class design solutions
Manning Fisher, CEO & Founder
GLASS PANTHER
