Functionality vs Design

If you know a little about web development, you would know that there are two main aspects of it; functional and non-functional. Design is a part of non-functional aspect. Till now, you might be thinking that functional aspect is most important because your website runs on it. Well, you are not wrong! But but but, wait! There are other things to the story.

Let's first see  why functional aspect is important.
Imagine you get a car which is very pretty and gives you a grandure look. But when you start driving, the engine won't work. How good of a car that will be? Similarly, in websites, it's imperative that the website serves the purpose. For instance, if the website is an e-commerce store, it should be able to provide the user with a feature of a cart and the option of adding removing the products, then letting them checkout etc. Without these features, the website will be useful. Therefore, functional aspect is extremely important. Else, the website is useful.

If that is so, then how is the design important?
Okay well! Let's take another hypothetical scenario. There is a car that has an extremely good engine, gives extra mileage and has excellent drive. However, you never get to see it in the showroom. How will you ever buy it? That's exactly the case with the Design of the website. Design aspect brings the audience to your website. Without good design, users will never even visit your website twice, let alone make repeated purchases. It is essential for the design to be aestheically pleasant for people. When they open the website, the look and feel for their eyes should be good. They should be compelled to use the features. The more interactive the website, the more they would want to purchase commodities from it. Design is all about making user experience better for target audience so that they come again and again.

So the question of whether Functioal aspect of Design aspect is important, the real answer is that both are equally important as they both are co-dependent on each other. Without functional aspect, the website doesn't serve it's purpose so the design is useless. If the functioanlity is up to the mark, but the design is not good. Users wouldn't be coming to the website again or using it in the first place. Hence, both are important and you need to focus on both of these aspects.