Before the dawn of the Internet, when people mentioned the word “innovation” what they meant was groundbreaking technology. Think driverless cars, electron microscopes, and mobile phones. Now, innovation is closely tied up with design – sleek dxand intuitive interfaces, easy-to-navigate websites, and so on. There’s Apple, Google, and a whole bunch that has made tons of money from successful design ideas. The article “Why Good Design Is Finally A Bottom Line Investment” tells us why:

The back-end nuts and bolts eventually fade as a competitive advantage: Your manufacturing prowess, once a reliable bulwark, moves to China; your distribution channels, once the best, are now beaten by the Internet. When that happens, how can you sell anything–from a new thermostat to a new passenger plane–without fundamental design improvements that prove their worth to consumers with every use? And whom do you trust to cultivate that relationship between your product and your customer? An engineer? Or a designer?

In the open source world, design has quickly become an important component. Before, the developer merely needs to write the source code to make his/her desired functionality work. Now, a developer must work hand-in-hand with a designer to create an end-product that would perfectly blend together aesthetics and functionality and improve overall user experience. But of course, the challenge nowadays is how fast you can innovate to keep yourself ahead of the pack.

A good example of a design-focused company that stays on top of the pack is LucidWorks. It has formed partnerships with design solution providers that focus on enhancing user interface, search engine functionality, and overall search experience. The end result is their LucidWorks Product Suite, which possesses an intuitive open source design that makes it easy for organizations to develop their own search applications.

Lauren Llamanzares, October 1, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.