Why Does Beauty Build Trust at Stripe?

Katie Dill says beauty builds trust at Stripe because care visible on the surface signals the same care underneath, where businesses move money and keep personal information.

Stripe builds products for millions of businesses around the globe, from a single entrepreneur to a large enterprise. They run the business on the product, and a bad change can mean they cannot make payroll that week. Utility comes first and matters most: the product has to be powerful and solve real problems. Craft comes second. The power has to be easy to reach and intuitive, or it is no use. Beauty comes third and is part of what defines quality. A beautiful product is more usable, and people want to give it time. Showing love and care at the surface shows love and care underneath as well.

A bug, a typo, or an erratic design system does the reverse. A new typeface, or a layout that is not lined up neatly, makes people lose faith that the rest was thought about. Stripe plays a big role in an organization's money movement and personal information. If the product looks buggy on the surface, the hit to trust is huge. Trust has to be built across every level of the product and every dimension of quality.