While designers are constrained by the desires of those who pay for the design, their influence can be significant because of the design philosophy and the power of the user experience to transform a product.

The designer is responsible for conceiving an approach that is technology-driven and yet can be either a departure from the past or a compelling enhancement or continuation of the it.

The last example, illustrated in the preceding image, deals with the question--how important is the impact of the first impression to the overall experience?

• Approach A: As exemplified by Apple's home page, this favors a minimalist visual appeal, that is purely aesthetic. Apple sells many products, but the experience choice is to impress the visitor with a welcoming introduction that communicates the company's overall design philosophy of sophisticated yet simple and clean design. Regardless of the varying needs of visitors to the site, there is an assumption of sharing the same design philosophy that binds company and its customers.
• Approach B: This represents Microsoft's home page. For a couple of decades, these two companies were on the opposite side of the experience spectrum, and evidence of this contrast can still be traced today. While the site's design is certainly contemporary, it attempts to communicate multiple facets of the company and addresses very different types of audience. The design does not attempt to unify the experience, but rather to apply a generically clean experience to the home page and make it easy for each segment to find its destination under the brand.