Why should designers and developers follow the 80/20 rule in their work?

Here you go:

You may be familiar with the 80/20 rule — the idea that 80% of results come from 20% of effort. In design and development, this can also dramatically alter how you approach your business and projects.

The fact is that not all tasks are equal in terms of how much they impact your overall success. As an illustration, some types of work will actually advance the project significantly compared to others. Despite this, lots of designers/developers devote huge amounts of time on tiny improvements to the product or project (for example, no one may even notice when choosing colours), while neglecting to solve the bigger challenges. Who else has experienced this type of situation? Pretty common.

Applying the 80/20 rule means focusing on the work that truly matters.

Here are examples to illustrate these principles:

• Design: The majority of users (80%) are influenced by simple design (simple navigation and clean layout) rather than complex design (fancy animation), of which only a small number of people notice.
• Development: Improving core functionality or fixing a major bug in the product will yield better results than adjusting small details related to design and layout.
• Teamwork: Creating an understanding of the overall purpose for your work or providing direction for your team’s workflow will also create more value for you than repeatedly making small corrections.

We tend to gravitate toward “fun” or easier portions of a project; those things are productive, but they won’t actually have an impact. This is a tricky trap. The smarter move is finding the 20% of the work that is going to produce 80% of the impact and do that to perfection. 

For any designer or developer, there is one question to consider: Are you busy or actually moving the needle?

Concentrating on the things that are truly impactful will allow their results to speak for themselves.